












'a; . - S ■!-• _• ■ 















Shakespearean 
Quotations 



SUBJECTS CLASSIFIED AND 
ALPHABETICALLY ARRANGED 



UjjlLi. 



COMPILED BY 

EMMA M. RAWLINS 



^ NEW YORK 

Published by The Author 

148 St. Ann's Avenue 
1900 



I'WO COPIES HECEiVK^, 

Library of Q%ugttt% 
i}if\c4 of t|g 

APfU61900 



50G66 



Copyright, 1898, by 
EMMA M. RAWLINS 



SECOND COPY. 






TO 



THIS LITTLE BOOK 

IS MOST 

GRA TEFULL Y INSCRIBED 



PREFATORY NOTE. 



The compiler's apology for oflFering this little 
work to the public is that, during a wide expe- 
rience as teacher, she has found great need for 
such a book of reference. 

It is therefore hoped that the convenient size, 
clear type, and classification of subjedls of this 
manual will recommend it to students of Shakes- 
peare. 

All the so-called '* Familiar'* quotations are 
given, with many others, which, perhaps, are not 
so well known. 

But few of the selections are more than two 
lines, thus making them easy to memorize. 

An appendix is subjoined, however, for refer- 
ence to special longer passages. 

E. M. R. 



CONTENTS 



Angels . 
Ambition 

Brain 
Beauty . 
Book 

Conscience 
Courtesy 
Courage 
Custom . 
Curse 
Calumny 
Captain . 
Cupid 
Candle . 
Coward . 

Death . 
Dagger . 
Devil 
Divinity 

Doubts : 
Dogs 

Enemy . 
Earth 

Friends . 
Faults . 
Fortune . 
Fools . 



9 
II 

12 
13 
14 

16 

19 
20 
20 
21 
22 
23 
23 
25 
25 

26 

28 

29 
30 
31 
31 

32 

33 

34 
37 
38 
40 



Ji'ashion . 


42 


Fancy 


43 


Fates 


43 


Flattery 


44 


God 


45 


Grief . 


. . 46 


Ghost 


. . 48 


Going 


49 


Gold 


49 


Gifts 


50 


Hearts . 


51 


Heaven . 


53 


Honour . 


56 


Ingratitude 


57 


Imagination 


59 


Innocence 


59 


Ink 


60 


Jealousy 


60 


Judgment 


62 


Justice . 


63 


Jests 


63 


King 


64 


Love 


65 


Life 


70 


Man 


71 


Men 


72 



VI 



SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 



Mercy 


73 


Sleep 


Music 


75 


Saint 


Madnes 


76 


Sin . 


Name 


78 


Slander 


Offence . 


78 


Tongue 


Observation . 


79 


Time 


Prayer . 


80 


Uses 


Patience 


82 




Peace . 


S3 


Virtue 


Pity 


85 


Villain 


Philosophy . 


86 


Women 


Quarrel . 


87 


World 


Remedy . 
Reason . 


88 
88 


Words 

War 

Wit 


Soul 


89 




Sorrow . 


91 


Youth 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



A 
B 
C 
D 

E 
F 
G 

H 

I 

J 
K 

Appendix 



114 


L 


116 


M 


119 


N 


123 





126 


P 


127 


R 


130 


S 


130 


T 


133 


V 


135 


w 


136 





156 



SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 



ANGELS 
Angels and ministers of grace, defend us ! 

Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 4. 

A ministering angel shall my sister be, 

When thou liest howling. 

Act V. Sc. I. 



Flights of angels sing thee to thy rest ! 

Act V. Sc. 2. 



O, what may man within him hide. 

Though angel on the outward side ! 

Measure for Measure. Act III. Sc. 2. 



C^rse his better angel from his side. 

OtheUo. Act V. Sc. 2. 

Some holy angel 
Fly . . . and unfold 
His message ere he come. 

Macbeth. Act III. Sc. 6. 

Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell. 

Act IV. Sc. 3. 



lo SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 

Though this is a heavenly angel, hell is here ! 

Cymbeline. Act II. Sc. 2. 



By Jupiter, an angel ! or, if not. 

An earthly paragon ! 

Act III. Sc. 6. 

There's not the smallest orb which thou behold 'st, 

But in his motion like an angel sings. 

Merchant of Venice. Act V. Sc. i. 

If angels fight, 
Weak men must fall, for heaven still guards the 

right. 

King Richard II. Act III. Sc. 2. 

And vaulted with such ease into his seat. 

As if an angel dropp'd down from the clouds. 
King Henry IV. Part I. Act. IV. Sc. i. 

There is a good angel about him. 

Part II. Act II. Sc. 4. 

Consideration, like an angel, came 

And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him. 
King Henry V. Act I. Sc. i. 

Good angels guard thee! 

King Richard III. Act IV. Sc. i. 

Good angels guard thy battle. 

Act V. Sc. 3. 

Ye have angels' faces, but heaven knows your 

hearts. 

King Henry VIII. Act III. Sc. i. 



SHAKE3PKARE)AN QUOTAI'IONS II 

Now, good angels 
Fly o'er thy . . . head, and shade thy person 
Under their blessed wings! 



Act V. Sc. I. 



AMBITION 



/ Thy ambition, 

Thou^carlet sin, robb'd this bewailing land. 

/ King Henry VIII. Act III. Sc. 2. 

I charge thee, fling away ambition: 

By that sin fell the angels. 

Ibid. 

But 'tis a common proof, 

That lowliness is young ambition's ladder. 

Julius Csesar. Act. II. Sc. I. 

When that the poor have cried, Csesar hath wept: 

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff*. 

Act III. Sc. 2. 

I have no spur 

To prick the sides of my intent, but only 

Vaulting ambition. 

Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 7. 

And ambition, 

The soldier's virtue, rather makes choice of loss, 

Than gain which darkens him. 

Antony and Cleopatra. Act III. Sc. i. 

Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars, 

That make ambition virtue! O, farewell! 

Othello. Act III. Sc. 3. 



12 SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 

BRAIN 

O, there has been much throwing about of brains! 

Hamlet. Act II. Sc. 2. 

Sleep rock thy brain! 

Act III. Sc. 2. 

This is the very coinage of your brain. 

Act III. Sc. 4. 

Cudgel thy brains no more about it. 

ActV. Sc. I. 

His pure brain, 
Which some suppose the soul's frail dwelling- 
house, 
Doth by the idle comments that it makes 
Foretell the ending of mortalit3^ 

King John. Act V. Sc. 7. 

My brain 1*11 prove the female to my soul. 

My soul the father. 

King Richard II. Act V. Sc. 5. 

Brain him with his lady's fan. 

King Henry IV. Act II. Sc. 3. 

My brain more busy than the labouring spider 
Weaves tedious snares to trap mine enemies. 

King Henry VI. Part II. Act III. Sc. 2. 

Raze out the written troubles of the brain. 

Macbeth. Act V. Sc. 3. 

I talk of dreams, 

Which are the children of an idle brain. 

Romeo and Juliet. Act I. Sc. 4. 



SHAKKSPKAREAN QUOTA'TIONS I3 

The brain may devise laws for the blood, 
but a hot temper leaps o'er a cold decree. 

The Merchant of Venice. Act I. Sc. 2. 

Have I laid my brain in the sun and dried it, that 
it wants matter to prevent so gross o'er reach- 
ing as this? 

Merry Wives of Windsor. Act V. Sc. 5. 

Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets 

of the brain awe a man from the career of his 

humour? 

Much Ado About Nothing. Act II. Sc. 3. 

If a man will be beaten with brains, a' shall wear 

nothing handsome about him. 

Act V. Sc. 4. 

I have very poor and unhappy brains for 

drinking. 

Othello. Act 11. Sc. 3. 



BEAUTY 

Then let her beauty be her wedding dower. 

Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act III. Sc. i. 

O beauty, 

Till now I never knew thee! 

King Henry VIII. Act I. Sc. 4. 

Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye, 

Not utter'd by base sale of chapmen's tongues. 
Love's Labour's Lost. Act IL Sc. i. 



14 SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 

O, she is rich in beauty, only poor, 

That when she dies with beauty dies her store. 

Romeo and Juliet. Act I. Sc. I. 

Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear! 

Act I. Sc. 5. 

Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical! 

Act III. So. 2, 

Ay, beauty *s princely majesty is such, 

Confounds the tongue and makes the senses rough. 
King Henry VI. Part I. Act V. Sc. 3. 

*Tis beauty that doth oft make women proud. 

Part III. Act I. Sc. 4. 

'Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white 
Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on. 

Twelfth Night. Act I. Sc. 5. 

For beauty is a witch 
Against whose charms faith melteth into blood. 
Much Ado About Nothing. Act II. Sc. i. 

Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good. 

Passionate Pilgrim. 



BOOK 

That book in many's eyes doth share the glory. 

That in gold clasps locks in the golden story. 

Romeo and Juliet. Act I. Sc. 3. 

You kiss by the book. 

Act I. Sc. 5. 



shake;spe:arkan quotai^ions 15 

One writ with me in sour misfortune's book! 

Act V. Sc. 2. 

In nature's infinite book of secrecy 

A little I can read. 

Antony and Cleopatra. Act I. Sc. 2. 

Deeper than did ever plummet sound 
I'll drown my book. 

The Tempest. Act V. Sc. i. 

I had rather than forty shillings I had my 
Book of Songs and Sonnets here. 

The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act I. Sc. i. 

Small have continual plodders ever won 
Save base authority from others' books. 

Love's Labour's Lost. Act I. Sc. i. 

Mark'd with a blot, damn'd in the book of heaven. 
King Richard IL Act IV. Sc. i. 

I'll read enough, 

When I do see the very book indeed, 

Where all my sins are writ, and that's myself. 

Ibid. 

Who hath not heard it spoken 

How deep you were within the books of God ? 

King Henry IV. Part IL Act IV. Sc. 2. 
I'll note you in my book of memory. 

King Henry VI. Part I. Act II. Sc. 4. 

Our forefathers had no other books but the score 

and the tally. 

Part 1 1. Act IV. So. 7. 



1 6 SHAKKSPKARBAN QUOTATIONS 

Made him my book, wherein my soul recorded 

The history of all her secret thoughts. 

King Richard III. Act III. So. 5. 

Books in the running brooks. 

As You Like It. Act II. Sc. i. 

These trees shall be my books 

And in their barks my thoughts I'll character. 

Act III. Sc. 2. 

I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books. 
Much Ado About Nothing. Act I. Sc. i. 

CONSCIENCE. 
So much my conscience whispers in your ear. 

Which none but heaven and you and I shall hear. 

King John. Act. I. Sc, i. 

Now, for our consciences, the arms are fair, 

When the intent of bearing them is just. 

King Henry IV. Part I. Act V. Sc. 2. 

What you speak is in your conscience washed 

As pure as sin with baptism. 

King Henry V. Act I. Sc. 2. 

And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel, 

Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted. 

King Henry VI. Part II. Act III. Sc. 2. 

The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul! 
King Richard III. Act I. Sec. 3. 

Faith, some certain dregs of conscience are yet 

within me. 

Act I. Sc. 4. 



SHAKE^SPKARKAN QUCTATIONS 1 7 

Every man's conscience is a thousand swords. 

Act V. Sc. 2. 

O, coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me! 

Act V. Sc. 3. 

My conscience hath a thousand several tongues. 

Ibid. 

Conscience is but a word that cowards use. 

Act V. So. 4. 

O my . . . 

The quiet of my wounded conscience. 

King Henry VIII. Act II. Sc. 2. 

It seems the marriage with his brother's wife 

Has crept too near his conscience. 

Ibid. 

No, his conscience 

Has crept too near another lady. 

King Henry VIII. Act II. Sc. 2. 

But conscience, conscience! 

O, 'tis a tender place. 

Act II. Sc. 2. 

I meant to rectify my conscience. 

Act II. Sc. 4. 

There's nothing I have done yet, o' my con- 
science, 

Deserves a corner. 

Act III. Sc. I. 

A peace above all earthly dignities, 

A still and quiet conscience. 

Act III. Sc. 2. 



1 8 SHAKKSPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 

Very reverend sport, truly; and done in the testi- 
mony of a good conscience. 

Love's Labour's Lost. Act. IV. Sc. 2. 

Consciences that will not die in debt. 

Act V. Sc. 2. 

For policy sits above conscience. 

Timon of Athens. Act III. Sc. 2. 

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all. 

Hamlet. Act IIL Sc. i. 

Now must your conscience my acquittance seal. 

Act IV. Sc. 7. 

Is't not perfec5l conscience, 

To quit him with this arm ? 

Act V. Sc. 2. 

A very gentle beast, and of a good conscience. 

Midsummer Night's Dream. Act V. Sc. i. 

Twenty consciences, 

That stand 'twixt me and . . . candied be they 

And melt ere they molest. 

The Tempest. Act II. Sc. i. 

Therefore is it most expedient for the wise (if 

Don Worm, his conscience, find no impediment 

To the contrary) to be the trumpet to his own 

virtues. 

Much Ado About Nothing. Act V. Sc. 2. 

I'll haunt thee like a wicked conscience still, 

That mouldeth goblins swift as frenzy's thoughts. 
Troilus and Cressida. Act V. Sc. 10. 



SHAKKSPKARE^AN QUOTATIONS 1 9 

COURTESY 

How lie did seem to dive into their hearts, 

With humble and familiar courtesy. 

King Richard II. Act I. Sc. 4. 

Me rather had my heart might feel your love 

Than my unpleased eye see your courtesy. 

Act III. Sc. 3. 

And then I stole all courtesy from heaven, 

And dress' d myself in such humility 

That I did pluck allegiance from men's hearts. 

King Henry IV. Part I. Act III. Sc. 2. 

If a man will make courtesy and say nothing, he 
is virtuous. 

King Henry IV. Part II. Act II. Sc. i. 

The mirror of all courtesy. 

King Henry VIII. Act II. Sc. i. 

I am the very pink of courtesy. 

Romeo and Juliet. Act II. Sc. 4. 

He is not the flower of courtesy. 

Act II. Sc. 5. 

In courtesy gives undeserving praise. 

Love's Labour's Lost. Act V. Sc. 2. 

Why, this is he 
That kiss'd his hand away in courtesy. 

Ibid. 

Courtesy itself must convert to disdain, if you 

come in her presence. 

Much Ado About Nothing. Act I. Sc. i. 



20 SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 

Then is courtesy a turncoat. 



Ibid. 



But manhood is melted into courtesies, valour 

into compliments. 

Much Ado About Nothing. Act IV. Sc. i. 

He was wont to lend money for a Christian 

courtesy; let him look to his bond. 

Merchant of Venice. Act III. Sc. i. 

It must appear in other ways than words, 

Therefore I scant this breathing courtesy. 

Act V. So. I. 

I was beset with shame and courtesy. 

Ibid. 

How courtesy would seem to cover sin! 

Pericles. Act I. Sc. i. 

COURAGE. 

For courage mounteth with occasion. 

King John. Act II. Sc. i. 

But screw your courage to the sticking-place, 
And we'll not fail. 

Macbeth. Act I. Sc. 7. 

CUSTOM. 

Though I am native here 

And to the nirmner born, it is a custom 

More honour 'd in the breach than the observance. 

Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 4, 



SHAKKSPBARBAN QUOTATIONS 21 

Sleeping within my orchard, 

My custom always of the afternoon. 

Act I. Sc. 5. 

Nature her custom holds, 

Let shame say what it will. 

Act IV. Sc. 7. 

Custom hath made it in him a property of easi- 
ness. 

Act V. Sc. I. 

Age can not wither her, not custom stale 

Her infinite variety. 

Antony and Cleopatra. Act II. Sc. 2. 

Think of this .... 

But as a thing of custom, 'tis no other; 

Only it spoils the pleasure of the time. 

Macbeth. Act III. Sc. 4. 

Nice customs curtsey to great kings. 

King Henry V. Act V. Sc. 2. 



CURSE 

The common curse of mankind, folly and igno- 
rance, be thine in great revenue! 

Troilus and Cressida. Act II Sc. 3. 

'Tis the curse of service 

Preferment goes by letter and affection, 

And not by old gradation. 

Othello. Act I. Sc. i. 



22 SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 

O curse of marriage, 

That we can call these delicate creatures ours, 

And not their appetites! 

Act III. Sc. 3. 

Dreading the curse that money may buy out; 
And by the merit of vile gold, dross, dust, 
Purchase corrupted pardon of a man. 

King John. Act III. Sc. i. 

Can curses pierce the clouds and enter heaven ? 
Why, then, give way, dull clouds, to my quick 
curses! 

King Richard III. Act I. Sc. 3. 

Their curses now 

lyive where their prayers did. 

King Henry VIII. Act I. Sc. 2. 

Curses, not loud but deep. 

Macbeth. Act V. Sc. 3. 

Cursed be he that moves my bones. 

Shakespeare's Epitaph. 



CAI.UMNY 

Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou 

shalt not escape caltmmy. 

Hamlet. Act III. Sc. i. 

No might nor greatness in mortality 

Can censure 'scape; back-wounding calumny. 
Measure for Measure. Act III. Sc. 2. 



SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 23 

CAPTAIN 

And there at Venice gave 

His body to that pleasant country's earth, 

And his pure soul unto his captain, Christ. 

King Richard II. Act IV. So. i. 

O Thou, whose captain I account myself, 

Look on my forces with a gracious eye. 

King Richard III. Act V. So. 3. 

That in the captain 's but a choleric word, 

Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy. 

Measure for Measure. Act 11. So. 2. 

Who does i' the wars more than his captain can, 

Becomes his captain's captain. 

Antony and Cleopatra. Act III. So. i. 

O, he is the courageous captain of compliments! 
Romeo and Juliet. Act II. Sc. 4. 



CUPID 
If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer. 

Much Ado About Nothing. Act II. Sc. i. 

Of this matter 

Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made, 

That only wounds by hearsay. 

Act III. Sc. I. 



Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps. 

Ibid. 



24 SHAKESPKAREAN QUOTATIONS 

He hath twice or thrice cut 
Cupid's bow-string, and the little hangman dare 
not shoot at him. Act III. Sc 2. 

Cupid is a knavish lad, 

Thus to make poor females mad. 

Midsummer Night's Dream. Act III. Sc. 2. 

Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower 

Hath such force and blessed power. 

Act IV. Sc. I. 

He is Cupid's grandfather and learns news of 
him. Love's Labour's Lost. Act II. Sc. i. 

Saint Cupid, then! Act IV. Sc. 3. 

She'll not be hit 

With Cupid's artow: she hath Dian's wit. 

Romeo and Juliet. Act L Sc. i. 

Why, now is Cupid a child of conscience; he 
makes restitution. 

Merry Wives of Windsor. Act V. Sc. 5. 

For I long to see 
Quick Cupid's post that comes so mannerly. 

The Merchant of Venice. Act II. Sc. 9. 

He that will divide a minute into a thousand 

parts and break but a part of the thousandth 

part of a minute in the affairs of love, it may 

be said of him that Cupid hath clapp'd him o' 

the shoulder, but I'll warrant him heart whole. 
As You Like It. Act IV, Sc. i. 



SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 25 

Young Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim, 

When King Cophetua loved the beggar maid! 
Romeo and Juliet. Act II. Sc. i. 



CANDIyE 

How far that little candle throws his beams! 

So shines a good deed in a naughty world. 

The Merchant of Venice. Act V. Sc. i. 

By these blessed candles of the night. 

Ibid. 

Night^s candles are burned out, and jocund day 

Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops. 

Romeo and Juliet. Act III. Sc. 5. 

There's husbandry in heaven; 

Their candles are all out. 

Macbeth. Act II. Sc. I. 

Out, out, brief candle! 

Act V. Sc. 5. 

COWARD 

We'll have a swashing and a martial outside 

As m.any other mannish cowards have. 

As You Like It. Act I. Sc. 3. 

Cowards father cowards and base things sire base. 

Cymbeline. Act IV. Sc. 2. 

A plague of all cowards! 

King Henry IV. Part I. Act II. Sc. 4. 

I was now a coward on instinc?t. 

Ibid. 



26 SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 

DEATH 

O, now doth death line his dead chaps with steel. 

King John. Act II. Sc. i. 

Death, death: O amiable lovelv death! 

'Act III. Sc. 4. 

death, made proud with pure and princely 
beauty! 

Act IV. Sc. 3. 

'Tis strange that death should sing. 

Act V. Sc. 7. 

And nothing can we call our own but death. 

King Richard II. Act III. Sc. 2. 

1 were better to be eaten to death with a rust 

than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual 

motion. 

King Henry IV. Part II. Act I. Sc. 2. 

Just death, kind umpire of men's miseries, 
With sweet enlargement doth dismiss me hence. 

King Henry VI. Part I. Act II. Sc. 5. 

Thou antic deat'i, which laugh 'st us here to 

scorn! 

Act IV. So. 7. 

Ah, what sign it is of evil life, 
Where death's approach is seen so terrible! 

Part II. Act III. Sc. 3. 

The worst is death; and death ^411 have his day. 

King Richard III. Act III. Sc. 2. 



SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 2^ 

The sense of death is most in apprehension. 

Measure for Measure. Act III. Sc. I. 

Av, but to die, and go we know not where. 



ERRATA. 

P. 26, bottom line for Richard '* III." read '* II." 

P. 40, line 10 from top for Sc. ** 5 " read ** 15." 

P. 40, line 15 from top for Sc. *' 3 " read *' 2." 

P. 42, line 2 from top for Sc. *' i " read "3." 

P. 98, line g from top for Sc. *' 2" read '* i." 

P. 102, line 7 from top for Part ** II." read ** I." 

P. 112, line 5 from top for Sc. ** i " read '* 2." 

P. 114, line 8 from bottom for Sc. ** i " read " 2." 

P. 114, bottom line for Sc. " 2 " read '* i." 

P. 124, line II from top for " Othello " read " Macbeth. 

P. 142, line 6 from top for " III." read ** V." 

P. 143, line 7 from top for Sc. ** 2 " read ** 7." 

P. 154, line 3 from top for Act '* III." read " II." 



Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath, 

Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty. 

Act V. Sc. 2. 



26 SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 

DEATH 

O, now doth death line his dead chaps with steel. 

King John. Act II. Sc. i. 




ran ii. Act 111. Sc. 3. 



The worst is death; and death will have his day. 
King Richard III. Act III. Sc. 2. 



SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 2^ 

The sense of death is most in apprehension. 

Measure for Measure. Act III. Sc. i. 

Ay, but to die, and go we know not where. 

Ibid. 

Be absolute for death: either death or life 

Shall thereby be the sweeter. 

Measure for Measure. Act III. Sc. i. 

Yet in this life 

lyie hid more thousand deaths, yet death we fear, 

That makes these odds all even. 

Ibid. 

O, death's a great disguiser! 

Act IV. Sc. 2. 

When beggars die there are no comets seen; 
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of 
princes. 

Julius Caesar. Act II. Sc. 2. 

It seems to me most strange that men should fear: 

Seeing that death, a necessary end, 

Will come when it will come. 

Ibid. 

Death lies on her like an untimely frost 

Upon the sweetest flower of all the field. 

Romeo and Juliet. Act IV. Sc. 5. 

Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath. 

Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty. 

Act V. Sc. 2. 



28 SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 

I would fain die a dry death. 

The Tempest. Act I. Sc. i. 

He that dies pays all debts. 

Act III. Sc. 2. 

Death, that dark spirit, in's nervy arm doth lie; 

Which, being advanced, declines, and then men 

die. 

Coriolanus. Act II. Sc. i. 

Out of the jaws of death. 

Twelfth Night. Act III. Sc. 4. 

Done to death by slanderous tongues. 

Much Ado About Nothing. Act V. Sc. 3. 

Speak me fair in death. 

Merchant of Venice. Act IV. Sc. i. 

For death remember 'd should be like a mirror, 

Who tells us life's but breath, to trust it error. 

Pericles. Act I. Sc. i. 



DAGGER 

Art thou but 

A dagger of the mind ? 

Macbeth. Act II. Sc. i. 

There's daggers in men's smiles. 

Act II. Sc. 3. 

This is the air-drawn dagger. 

Act III. Sc. 4. 



SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 29 

She Speaks poniards, and every word stabs. 

Much Ado About Nothing. Act II. Sc. I. 

Hath no man's dagger here a point for me ? 

Act IV. Sc. I. 

I will speak daggers to her, but use none. 

Hamlet. Act III. Sc. 2. 

These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears. 

Act III. Sc. 4. 

For I wear not 

My dagger in my mouth. 

Cymbeline. Act IV. Sc. 2. 

Thou hidest a thousand daggers in thy thoughts! 
King Henry IV. Part II. Act IV. Sc. 5. 



DEVIL 

Some airy devil hovers in the sky 

And pours down mischief. 

King John. Act III. Sc. 2. 

He will give the devil his due. 

King Henry IV. Part I. Act I. Sc. 2. 

Tell truth and shame the devil. 

Act III. Sc. I. 

You are mortal, 
And mortal eyes can not endure the devil. 

King Richard III. Act I. Sc. 2. 

The devil hath power 

To assume a pleasing shape. 

Hamlet. Act II. Sc. 2. 



30 SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 

With devotion's visage 

And pious action we do sugar o'er 

The de\'il himself. 

Act III. Sc. I. 

The devil can cite Scriptures for his purpose. 

The Merchant of Venice. Act I. Sc. 3. 

He must needs go that the devil drives. 

All's Well That Ends Well. Act. I. Sc. 3. 

'Tis the eye of childhood 

That fears a painted devil. 

Macbeth. Act II. Sec. 2. 

Even- 
Inordinate cup is unblessed, and the ingredient 
is a devil. 

Othello. Act II. Sec. 3. 

He must have a long spoon that must eat with 

the devil. 

The Comedy of Errors. Act IV. Sc. 4. 

Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light. 
Love's Labour's Lost. Act IV. Sc. 3. 



DrV^IXITY 

There's such divinity- doth hedge a king, 

That treason can but peep to what it would. 

Hamlet. Act. IV. Sc. 5. 

There's a di\'inity that shapes our ends, 

Rough-hew them how we will. 

Act V. Sc. 2. 



SHAKHSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 3 1 

They say there is divinity in odd numbers, 
either in nativity, chance, or death. 

Merry Wives of Windsor. Act V. Sc. i. 

DOUBTS 

Our doubts are traitors 

And make us lose the good we oft might win 

By fearing to attempt. 

Measure for Measure. Act I. Sc. 4. 

But now I am cabin'd, cribb'd, confined, bound 

in 

To saucy doubts and fears. 

Macbeth. Act III. Sc. 4. 

Modest doubt is calPd 

The beacon of the wise. 

Troilus and Cressida. Act. II. Sc. 2. 

DOGS 

I had rather be a dog and bay the moon. 
Than such a Roman. 

Julius Caesar. Act IV. Sc. 3. 

Hounds, and grayhounds, mongrels, spaniels, 

curs, 
Shoughs, water-rugs, and demi- wolves, are clept 
All by the name of dogs. 

Macbeth. Act III. Sc. i. 

If I want gold, steal but a beggar's dog, 

And give it Timon, why, the dog coins gold. 
Timon of Athens. Act II. Sc. i. 



32 SHAKESPKARKAN QUOI'ATIONS 



1 



I had rather be a beggar's dog than Apemantus. 

Act IV. Sc. 3. 



Give to dogs 
What thou deny' St to men. 



Ibid. 



I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a 

man swear he loves me. 

Much Ado About Nothing. Act I. Sc. i. 

And he had been a dog that should have howled 

thus, they would have hanged him. 

Act II. Sc. 3. 

Make them of no more voice 

Than dogs that are as often beat for barking 

As, therefore, kept to do so. 

Coriolanus. Act II. Sc. 3. 

I have dogs . . . 

Will rouse the proudest panther in the chase. 

Titus Andronicus. Act II. Sc. 2. 

The little dogs and all, 

Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart, too, see they bark 

at me. 

King Lear. Act III. Sc. 6. 



ENEMY 

O God, that men should put an enemy in their 

mouths to steal away their brains! 

Othello. Act II. Sc. 3. 



SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 33 

'Tis death to me to be at enmity. 

King Richard III. Act II. Sc. i. 

A thing devised by the enemy. 

Act V. Sc. 3. 

He would not in mine age 

Have left me naked to mine enemies. 

King Henry VIII. Act III. Sc. 2. 

Mine enemy's dog, 

Though he had bit me, should have stood that 

night 

Against my fire. 

King Lear. Act IV. Sc. 7. 

In cases of defence 'tis best to weigh 

The enemy more mighty than he seems. 

King Henry V. Act II. Sc. 4. 

I am sure care 's an enemy to life. 

Twelfth Night. Act I. Sc. 3. 

Security 
Is mortals* chiefest enemy. 

Macbeth. Act III. Sc. 5. 

EARTH 

1*1 put a girdle round about the earth 

In forty minutes. 

Midsummer Night's Dream. Act II. Sc. i. 

For naught so vile that on the earth doth live. 

But to the earth some special good doth give. 

Romeo and Juliet. Act II. Sc. 3. 



34 SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 

'* Give him a little earth for charity. '' 

King Henry VIII. Act IV. Sc. 2. 

O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, 

That I am meek and gentle with these butchers ! 

Julius Caesar. Act III. Sc. i. 

The earth has bubbles, as the water has, 

And these are of them. 

Macbeth. Act I. Sc. 3. 



FRIENDS 

Call you that backing of your friends ? A plague 

upon such backing! 

King Henry IV. Part I. Act II. Sc. 4. 

And all my friends which thou must make thy 

friends 

Have but their stings and teeth newly ta'en out. 

Part II. Act IV. Sc. 5. 

God keep me from false friends! 

King Richard III. Act III. Sc. i. 

For those you make friends 
And give your hearts to, when they once per- 
ceive 
The least rub in your fortunes, fall away 

lyike water from ye. 

King Henry VIII. Act II. Sc. i. 



SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 35 

I am wealthy in my friends. 

Timon of Athens. Act II. Sc. 2. 

All gone! and not 

One friend to take his fortune by the arm, 

And go along with him ! 

Act IV. Sc. 2. 

What viler thing upon the earth than friends 

Who can bring noblest minds to basest ends! 

Act IV. Sc. 3. 

Neither a borrower nor a lender be : ; 

For loan oft loses both itself and friend. 

Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 3. 

Those friends thou hast and their adoption tried, 

Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel. 

Act I. Sc. 3. 

Who in want a hollow friend doth try, 

Directly seasons him his enemy. 

Act III. Sc. 2. 

For who not needs shall never lack a friend. 

Ibid. 

He that wants money, means and content is 

without three good friends. 

As You Like It. Act III. Sc. 2. 



A friend should bear his friend's infirmities, 

But Brutus makes mine greater than they are. 
Julius Caesar. Act IV. Sc. 3. 



36 SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 

This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would 

go near to make a man look sad. 

Midsummer Night's Dream. Act V. Sc. I. 

And do as adversaries do in law, 

Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends. 

Taming of the Shrew. Act I. Sc. 2. 

My friends were poor, but honest. 

All's Well That Ends Well. Act I. Sc. 3. 

Now I dare not say I have one friend alive. 

The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act V. Sc. 4. 

We have no friend 

But resolution, and the briefest end. 

Antony and Cleopatra. Act IV. Sc, 15. 

He that is thy friend, indeed, 

He will help thee in thy need. 

The Passionate Pilgrim. 



Every man will be thy friend, 
Whilst thou hast wherewith to spend. 



Ibid. 



Left and abandoned of his velvet friends. 

As You Like It. Act II. Sc. i. 



Lose not so noble a friend on vain suppose, 

Nor with sour looks afflict his noble heart. 

Titus Andronicus. Act I. Sc. I. 



SHAKKSPBAREAN QUOTATIONS 37 

FAUI.TS 

O, what a world of vile ill-favour' d faults 

lyooks handsome in three hundred pounds a year! 
Merry Wives of Windsor. Act III. Sc. 4. 



Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it ? 

Measure for Measure. Act II. Sc. 2. 



That we were all, as some would seem to be, 

Free from our faults, as from faults seeming free! 
Measure for Measure. Act HI. Sc. 2 

'Tis a fault to heaven, 
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature. 
To reason most absurd. 

Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 2. 



Every man has his fault, and honesty is his. 

Timon of Athens. Act HI. Sc. i. 



And oftentimes excusing of a fault 

Doth make the fault the worse by the excuse. 

King John. Act IV. Sc. 2. 

The image of a wicked heinous fault 

lyives in his eye. 

Ibid. 

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, 

But in ourselves, that we are underlings. 

Julius Caesar. Act I. Sc. 2. 



38 SHAKKSPKAREAN QUOTATIONS 

All his faults observed, 

Set in a note-book, leam'd, and conn'd by rote. 

Act IV. Sc. 3. 

Every one fault seeming monstrous till his fellow- 
fault came to match it. 

As You Like It. Act III. Sc. 2. 



FORTUNE 

Fortune reigns in gifts of the world. 

As You Like It. Act i. Sc. 2. 



One out of suits with fortune. 

Ibid. 



My pride fell with my fortunes. 

Ibid. 



I^et us sit and mock the good housewife 

Fortune from her wheel. 

Ibid. 

And raiPd on I<ady Fortune in good terms. 

Act II. Sc. 7. 

Fortune shall cull forth 

Out of one side her happy minion. 

King John. Act II. Sc. i. 

When Fortune means to men most good, 

She looks upon them with a threatening eye. 

Act III. Sc. 4. 



SHAKKSPBARKAN QUOTATIONS 39 

Will Fortune never come with both hands full ? 
King Henry IV. Part II. Act IV. Sc. 4. 



And giddy Fortune's furious fickle wheel. 

King Henry V. Act III. Sc. 6. 



Yield not thy neck 

To fortune's yoke, but let thy dauntless mind 

Still ride in triumph over all mischance. 

King Henry VI. Part III. Act III. Sc. 3. 

Though Fortune's malice overthrow my state, 

My mind exceeds the compass of her wheel. 

Part III. Act IV. Sc. 4. 

But stoop with patience to my fortune. 

Part III. Act V. Sc. 5. 

Fortune is merry, 

And in this mood will give us anything. 

Julius Caesar. Act III. Sc. 2. 

There is a tide in the affairs of men. 

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. 

Act IV. Sc. III. 

I'd whistle her oflF and let her down the wind, 
To prey at fortune. 

Othello. Act. III. Sc. 3. 

On Fortune's cap we are not the very button. 

Hamlet. Act II. Sc. 2. 



40 SHAKKSPKARKAN QUO'TATIONS 

Now the fair goddess Fortune, 

Fall deep in love with thee! 

Coriolanus. Act I. Sc. 5. 

Well, if Fortune be a woman, 
she's a good wench for this gear. 

Merchant of Venice. Act II. Sc. 2. 

No, let me speak; and let me rail so high. 

That the false housewife Fortune break her wheel, 

Provok'd by my offence. 

Antony and Cleopatra. Act IV. Sc. 5. 

Fortune brings in some boats that are not steer' d. 

Cymbeline. Act V. Sc. 3. 

He shall not knit a knot in his fortunes with the 

finger of my substance. 

Merry Wives of Windsor. Act III. Sc. 3. 



FOOLS 

Thus we play the fools with the time, and the 

spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us. 
King Henry IV. Part II. Act II. Sc. 2. 

How ill white hairs become a fool and jester! 

King Henry IV. Part II. Act V. Sc. 5. 

** A fool's bolt is soon shot." 

King Henry V. Act III. Sc. 7. 



SHAKBSPEJARBAN QUOTATIONS 4I 

The dullness of the fool is the whetstone of the 

wits. 

As You Like It. Act I. Sec. 2. 

The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely 

what wise men do foolishly. 

Ibid. 

The little foolery that wise men have makes a 

great show. 

Ibid. 

A fool, a fool! I met a fool i' the forest, 

A motley fool. 

Act II. Sc. 7. 

My lungs began to grow like chanticleer, 

That fools should be so deep contemplative. 

Ibid. 

I had rather have a fool to make me merry than 
experience to make me sad. 

Act IV. Sc. I. 

rhe fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man 
knows himself to be a fool. 
Act V. Sc. I. 

Here comes a pair of very strange beasts, which 

in all tongues are called fools. 

Act V. Sc. 4. 

O, these deliberate fools! 

Merchant of Venice. Act II. Sc. 9. 



42 SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 

This is the fool that lent out money gratis. 

Merchant of Venice. Act III. Sc. i. 

Folly in fools bears not so strong a note 
As foolery in the wise when wit doth dote. 

Love's Labour's Lost. Act V. Sc. 2. 

Thou art the cap of all the fools alive. 

Timon of Athens. Act IV. Sc. 3. 

lyord, what fools these mortals be! 

Midsummer Night's Dream. Act III. Sc. 2. 



FASHION 

Poor I am stale, a garment out of fashion 

Cymbeline. Act III. Sc. 4, 



I 



lyet's do it after the high Roman fashion. 

Antony and Cleopatra. Act IV. Sc. 15. 

He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat. 

Much Ado About Nothing. Act I. Sc. I. 

Now will he lie ten nights awake, carving the 

fashion of a new doublet. 

Act II. Sc. 3. 

The fashion wears out more apparel than the man. 

Act III. Sc. 3. 

Thou art not for the fashion of these times, 

Where none will sweat but for promotion. 

As You Like It. Act II. Sc. 3. 



SHAKKSPBARKAN QUOTATIONS 43 

A man in all the world's new fashion planted, 

That hath a mint of phrases in his brain. 

Love's Labour's Lost. Act L Sc. i. 



FANCY 

Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy. 

As You Like It. Act IV. Sc. 3. 

And the imperial votaress passed on, 

In maiden meditation, fancy-free. 

Midsummer Night's Dream. Act II. Sc. i. 



All impediments in fancy *s course, 

Are motives of more fancy. 

All's Well That Ends Well. Act V. Sc. 3. 

Tell me where is fancy bred, 

Or in the heart or in the head ? 

The Merchant of Venice. Act. III. Sc. 2. 



FATES 

Our wills and fates do so contrary run 

That our devices still are overthrown. 

Hamlet. Act III. Sc. 2. 

Men at some time are masters of their fates. 

Julius Caesar. Act L Sc. 2. 



44 SHAKE^SPKARBAN QUOTATIONS 

But yet I'll make assurance double sure, 

And take a bond of fate. 

Macbeth. Act IV. Sc. i.l 



O God! that one might read the book of fate! 

King Henry IV. Part II. Act III. Sc. i. 



I and my fellows 

Are ministers of Fate. 

The Tempest. Act III. Sc. 3. 



FI.ATTERY 

But when I tell him he hates flatterers, 

He says he does, being then most flattered. 

Julius Caesar. Act II. Sc. i. 

He that loves to be flattered is worthy o' the 

flatterer. 

Timon of Athens. Act I. Sc. i. 



Thou flatter'st misery. 

Act IV. Sc. 3. 

** There is flattery in friendship.** 

King Henry V. Act III. Sc. 7. 



He would not flatter Neptune for his trident, 

Or Jove for 's power to thunder. 

Coriolanus. Act III. Sc. i. 



SHAKBSPHARKAN QUOTATIONS 45 

GOD 

God and our right! 

King John. Act II. Sc. I. 



God in thy good cause make thee prosperous. 

King Richard II. Act I. Sc. 3. 



God save the mark! 
King Henry IV. Part I. Act I. Sc. 3. 



God made him, and therefore let him pass for a 

man. 

The Merchant of Venice. Act I, Sc. 2. 



You have the grace of God, .... and he hath 

enough. 

Act II. Sc. 2. 



God send every one their heart's desire! 

Much Ado About Nothing. Act III. Sc. 4. 



God defend but God should go before such 

villains! 

Act IV. Sc. 2. 



God grant us patience. 

Love's Labour's Lost. Act I. So. I. 



46 SHAKKSPEARKAN QUOTATIONS 

GRIEF 
For grief is proud and makes his owner stoop. 

King John. Act III. Sc. i. 

For my grief's so great 
That no supporter but the huge firm earth 

Can hold it up. 

Ibid. 

The fire is dead with grief. 

Act IV. Sc. I. 






Our griefs, and not our manners, reason now. 

Sc. 3. 

But grief makes one hour ten. 

King Richard II. Act I. Sc. 3. 



Thy grief is but thy absence for a time. 
Joy absent, grief is present for that time. 



Ibid. 



Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast. 

Act II. Sc. I. 



Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows. 

Sc. 2. 

O that I were as great 

As is my grief, or lesser than my name ! 

Act III. Sc. 3. 

Drinking my griefs whilst you mount up on high. 

Act IV. Sc. I. 



SHAKBSPBARKAN QUOTATIONS 47 

*Tis very true, my grief lies all within ; 

And these external manners of laments 

Are merely shadows to the unseen grief. 

Ibid. 

But that still use of grief makes wild grief tame. 
King Richard III. Act IV. Sc. 4. 

Every one can master a grief but he that has it. 
Much Ado About Nothing. Act III. Sc. 2. 

Being that I flow in grief, 

The smallest twine may lead me. 

Act IV. Sc. I. 

Patch grief with proverbs. 

Act v. So. I. 

My griefs cry louder than advertisements. 

Ibid. 

Some griefs are med'cinable. 

Cymbeline. Act III. Sc. 2. 

Triumphs for nothing and lamenting toys 

Is jollity for apes and grief for boys. 

Act IV. Sc. 2. 

O, grief hath changed me since you saw me last. 
The Comedy of Errors. Act. V. Sc. i. 

My grief lies onward and my joy behind. 

Sonnet L. 

This grief is crowned with consolation. 

Antony and Cleopatra. Act I. Sc. 2. 



43 SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 

I have 

That honorable grief lodged here which burns 

Worse than tears drown. 

The Winter's Tale. Act II. Sc. i, 

Some grief shows much of love, 

But much of grief shows still some want of wit^ 
Romeo and Juliet. Act III. Sc. 5. 

'Tis unmanly grief: 

It shows a will most incorrect to heaven. 

Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 



Extremity of griefs would make men mad. 
Titus Andronicus. Act IV. Sc. 



GHOST 

Never, O never, do his ghost the wrong 

To hold your honour more precise and nice 

With others than with him ! 

King Henry IV. Part II. Act II. Sc. 3. 

Vex not his ghost; O, let him pass! he hates 

him much 

That would upon the rack of this tough world 

Stretch him out longer. 

King Lear. Act V. Sc. 3. 

By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me! 

Hamlet. Act I. So. 4. 



SHAKKSPEARKAN QUOTATIONS 49 

Remember thee! 

Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat 

In this distradled globe. 

Act I. Sc. 5. 



GOING 

Nay, pray you, seek no colour for your going 

But, bid farewell, and go. 

Antony and Cleopatra. Act I. Sc. 3. 



Stand not upon the order of your going, 

But go at once. 

Macbeth. Act III. Sc. 4. 



GOLD 

All that glisters is not gold. 

The Merchant of Venice. Act II. Sc. 7. 



Saint-seducing gold. 

Romeo and Juliet. Act I. Sc. i. 



There is thy gold, worse poison to men's souls, 

Doing more murders in this loathsome world. 

Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not 

seU. 

Act V. Sc. I. 



50 SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 

*Tis gold 



1 



WMch buys admittance. 

Cymbeline. Act II. Sc. 3 



'Tis gold 

Which makes the true man kill'd and 

Saves the thief. 

Ibid. 

You 3'ourself 
Are much condemned to have an itching palm ; 

To sell and mart your offices for gold 

To imdeservers. 

Julius Caesar. Act IV. Sc. 3. 



GIFTS. 

Seven hundred pounds and possibilities is goot 

gifts. 

The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act I. Sc. i. 



Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind. 

Hamlet. Act III. Sc. I. 



If ladies be but 3'oung and fair, 

They have the gift to know it. 

As You Like It. Act II. Sc. 7. 



Win her with gifts, if she respecfl not words. 

Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act III. Sc. i. 



SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 5 1 

HEARTS 

If heart's presages be not vain, 

We three here part that ne'er shall met again. 
King Richard II. Act II. Sc. 2. 

For I will ease my heart, 

Albeit I make a hazard of my head. 

King Henry IV. Part I. Act I. Sc. 3. 

An habitation giddy and unsure 

Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart. 

Part II. Act I. Sc. 3. 

A good heart 's worth gold. 

Part II. Act II. Sc. 4. 

A heart unspotted is not easily daunted. 

King Henry VI. Part II. Act III. Sc. i. 

What Stronger breastplate than a heart untainted! 

Sc. 2. 

Cherish those hearts that hate thee. 

King Henry VIII. Act III. Sc. 2. 

With a proud heart he wore his humble weeds. 

Coriolanus. Act II. Sc. 3. 

I have a heart as little apt as yours, 

But yet a brain that leads my use of anger 

To better vantage. 

Act III. Sc. 2. 

Your heart's desires be with you! 

As You Like It. Act I. Sc. 2. 



52 SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 

She may wear her heart out first. 

Much Ado About Nothing. Act II. Sc. 3. 

God send every one their heart's desire! 

Act III. Sc. 4. 

O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face! 

Romeo and Juliet. Act III. Sc. 2. 



A heavy heart bears not a nimble tongue. 

Love's Labour's Lost. Act V. Sc. 2. 



A light heart lives long. 

Ibid. 



The valiant heart is not whipt out of his trade. 
Measure for Measure. Act II. Sc. i. 



Better a little chiding than a great deal of heart- 
break. 

Merry Wives of Windsor. Act. V. Sc. 2. 

My heart prays for him, though my tongue do 
curse. 

Comedy of Errors. Act IV. Sc. 2. 

My heart 
Is true as steel. 

Midsummer Night's Dream. Act II. Sc. i. 

But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue. 

Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 2. 



SHAKESPKAREAN QUOTATIONS 53 

I^t me wring your heart. 

Act III. Sc. 4. 

I will wear my heart upon my sleeve 

For daws to peck at. 

Othello. Act I. Sc. i. 



HEAVEN 

Heaven lay not my transgression to my charge! 

King John. Act I. Sc. i. 



O, let thy vow 

First made to heaven, first be to heaven performed! 

Act III. Sc. I. 

The breath of heaven has blown his spirit out 

And strew' d repentant ashes on his head. 

Act IV. Sc. I. 

The sun of heaven methought was loath to set, 

But stayed and made the western welkin blush. 

Act V. Sc. 4. 

Withhold thine indignation, mighty heaven, 

And tempt us not to bear above our power! 

ActV. Sc. 6. 

lyCt heaven revenge ; for I may never lift 

An angry arm against His minister. 

King Richard II. Act I. Sc. 2. 



54 SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 

Comfort 's in heaven ; and we are on the earth, 

Where nothing lives but crosses, cares and grief. 

Act 11. Sc. 2. 

But heaven hath a hand in these events, 

To whose high will we bound our calm contentsj 

Act V. Sc. 

He finds the joys of heaven here on earth. 

The Merchant of Venice. Act. III. Sc. sj 

Then 

In reason he should never come to heaven. 

Ibid." 

Heaven doth with us as we with torches do, 

Not light them for themselves. 

Measure for Measure. Act I. Sc. 2. 

Shall we serve heaven 

With less respedl than we do minister 

To our gross selves ? 

Measure for Measure. Act II. Sc. 2. 



Heaven hath my empty words : . . . 
Heaven in my mouth; . . . 
And in my heart the strong and swelling evil 
Of my conception. 

Act II. Sc. 4. 

He who the sword of heaven will bear, 

Should be as holy as severe. 

Act III. Sc. 2. 



SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 55 

O heaven, the vanity of wretched fools! 

ActV. Sc. I. 



She wished 
That heaven had made her such a man. 

Othello. Act I. Sc. 3. 

The grace of heaven, 

Before, behind thee, and on every hand, 

En wheel thee round! 

Act II. Sc. I. 

lyook how the floor of heaven 

Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold. 

The Merchant of Venice. Act V. Sc. i. 

He will make the face of heaven so fine 

That all the world will be in love with night. 

Romeo and Juliet. Act III. Sc. 2. 



The heavens do lour upon you for some ill; 

Move them no more by crossing their high will. 

Act IV. Sc. 5. 



Heaven make you better than your thoughts ! 

Merry Wives of Windsor. Act III. Sc. 3. 



O heaven, can you hear a good man groan 

And not relent, or compassion him ? 

Titus Andronicus. Act IV. Sc. i. 



56 SHAKKSPHARKAN QUOTATIONS 

HONOUR 

And if his name be George, I'll call him Peter; 

For new made honour doth forget men's names. 

King John. Act I. Sc. i. 

A foot of honour better than I was: 

But many a many foot of land the worse. 

Ibid. 

Honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour 

prick me oflF when I come on ? how then ? 
Can honour set to a leg ? No: or an arm ? 
No: or take away the grief of a wound ? No. 

King Henry IV. Part I. Act V. Sc. i. 

Honour hath no skill in surgery then ? No. 

What is honour ? A word. 

Ibid. 

And sounded all the depths and shoals of honour, 
Found thee a way, out of his wreck, to rise in. 

King Henry VIII. Act III. Sc. 2. 

He gave his honours to the world again, 

His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace. 

Act IV. Sc. 2. 

And those about her 

From her shall read the perfect ways of honour. 

Act V. Sc. 6. 

Set honour in one eye and death i' the other, 

And I will look on both indifferently. 

Julius Caesar. Act I. Sc. 2. 



shake)spe;arkan quo'TAI'ions 57 

For let the gods so speed me as I love 

The name of honour more than I fear death. 

Ibid. 



Well, honour is the subjedl of my story. 

Ibid. 

Believe me for mine honour, and have respedl 

to mine honour, that you may believe. 

Act III. Sc. 2. 



And as the sun breaks through the darkest 

clouds. 

So honour peereth in the meanest habit. 

Taming of the Shrew. Act IV. Sc. 3. 

I, I, I myself sometimes, leaving the fear of God 

on the left hand and hiding mine honour in 

my necessity, am fain to shuffle. 

Merry Wives of Windsor. Act II. Sc. 2. 



INGRATITUDE 

Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend, 

More hideous when thou show'st thee in a child 

Than the sea monster! 

King Lear. Act i. Sc. 4. 

How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is 

To have a thankless child ! 

Ibid. 



58 SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 

Pray to the gods to intermit the plague 

That needs must light on this ingratitude. 

Julius Caesar. Act i. Sc. i. 

Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms, 

Quite vanquished him. 

Act III. Sc. 2. 

O, see the monstrousness of man 

When he looks out in an ungrateful shape! 

Timon of Athens. Act III. Sc. 2. 



. He *s flung in rage from this ingrateful seat 

Of monstrous friends. 

Act IV. Sc. 2. 



I am rapt and can not cover 

The monstrous bulk of this ingratitude 

With any size of words. 

Act V. Sc. I. 

Ingratitude is monstrous, and for the multi- 
tude to be ingrateful, were to make a monster 

of the multitude. 

Coriolanus. Act II. Sc. 3. 

I hate ingratitude more in a man 

Than lying, vainness, babbling drunkenness, 

Or any taint of vice whose strong corruption 

Inhabits our frail blood. 

Twelfth Night. Act III. Sc. 4. 



SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 59 

IMAGINATION 

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet 

Are of imagination all compadl. 

Midsummer Night's Dream. Act V. Sc. I. 

And as imagination bodies forth 

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 

Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing 

A local habitation and a name. 

Ibid. 

Such tricks hath strong imagination. 
That, if it would but apprehend some joy- 
It comprehends some bringer of that joy 

Ibid. 



INNOCENCE 

lyook like the innocent flower, 

But be the serpent under 't. 

Macbeth. Act I. Sc. 5. 



The silence often of pure innocence 

Persuades when speaking fails. 

The Winter's Tale. Act II. Sc. 2. 



Innocence shall make 

False accusation blush, and tyranny 

Tremble at patience. 

Act III. Sc. 2. 



6o SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 

INK 
I^et there be gall enough in thy ink, 
Though thou write with a goose-pen. 

Twelfth Night. Act III. Sc. 2. 

Taunt him with the license of ink. 

Ibid. 

Never durst poet touch a pen to write 

Until his ink were temper 'd with love's sighs. 

Love's Labour's Lost. Act IV. Sc. 3. 

He hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not 
drunk ink. 

Act IV. Sc. 2. 

Beauteous as ink. 

Act V. Sc. 2. 

O, she is fallen 
Into a pit of ink, that the wide sea 
Hath drops too few to wash her clean again. 

Much Ado About Nothing. Act IV. Sc. i. 

JEALOUSY 

Trifles light as air 
Are to the jealous confirmation strong 
As proofs of holy writ. 

Othello. Act. III. Sc. 3. 

O beware. . . . of jealousy ; 
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock 
The meat it feeds on. 

Ibid. 



shak^spe;are:an quotations 6 1 

Then must you speak 

Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought 

Perplexed in the extreme. 

Act V. Sc. 2. 

Then a soldier, 

Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, 

Jealous in honour. 

As You Like It. Act II. Sc. 7. 



God be praised for my jealousy! 

Merry Wives of Windsor. Act II. Sc. 2. 



So full of artless jealousy is guilt, 

It spills itself in fearing to be spilt. 

Hamlet. Act IV. Sc. 5. 



O, how hast thou with jealousy infected 

The sweetness of affiance! 

King Henry V, Act II. Sc. 2. 



Self- harming jealousy! fie, beat it hence! 

The Comedy of Errors. Act II. Sc. i. 



How many fond fools serve mad jealousy! 

Ibid. 



And shuddering fear, and green-eyed jealousy! 

The Merchant of Venice. Act III. Sc. 2. 



62 SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 

JUDGMENT 

O judgment! thou art fled to brutish, beasts, 

And men have lost their reason. 

Julius Caesar. Act III. Sc. 2. 

Take our good meaning, for our judgment sits 

Five times in that ere once in our five wits. 

Romeo and Juliet. Act I. Sc. 4. 

How would you be 
If He, which is the top of judgment, should 
But judge you as you are ? 

Measure for Measure. Act II. Sc. 2. 

My salad days 

When I was green in judgment. 

Antony and Cleopatra. Act I. Sc. 5 

Men's judgments are 

A parcel of their fortunes. 

Act III. Sc. II. 

For what he has he gives, what thinks he shows; 

Yet gives he not till judgment guides his bounty. 
Troilus and Cressida. Act IV. Sc. 5. 

I have, perhaps, some shallow spirit of judgment. 
King Henry VI. Part I. Act II. Sc. 4. 



If my suspedl be false, forgive me, God, 
For judgment only doth belong to thee. 

Part II. Act III. Sc. 2 



SHAKKSPKARHAN QUOTATIONS 63 

JUSTICE 

This even-handed justice 
Commends the ingredients of our poison' d chalice 
To our own lips. 

Macbeth. Act I. Sc. 7. 

Tremble, thou wretch, 

That hast within thee undivulged crimes, 

Unwhipp'd of justice. 

King Lear. Act III. Sc. 2. 

See how yond justice rails upon yond simple 

thief. 

Act IV. Sc. 6. 

Therefore, Jew, 

Though justice be thy plea, consider this. 

That, in the course of justice, none of us 

Should see salvation. 

The Merchant of Venice. Act IV. Sc. i. 



JESTS 

You break jests as braggarts do their blades 

which . . . hurt not. 

Much Ado About Nothing. Act V. Sc. i. 

O jest unseen, inscrutable, invisible. 
As a nose on a man's face, or a weathercock on a 
steeple! 

The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act II. Sc. i. 



64 SHAKKSPEARKAN QUOTATIONS 

A jest's prosperity lies in the ear 

Of him that hears it, never in the tongue 

Of him that makes it. 

Love's Labour's Lost. Act V. Sc. 2. 

If you will jest with me, know my aspedl 

And fashion your demeanor to my looks. 

Comedy of Errors. Act IL Sc. 2. 

His jest will savour but of shallow wit. 

When thousands weep more than did laugh at it. 

King Henry V. Act L Sc. 2. 

He jests at scars that never felt a wound. 

Romeo and Juliet. Act IL Sc. 2. 



KING 



I 



Vn call thee Hamlet, 

King, father, royal Dane. 

Hamlet. Act L Sc. 4. 

The play's the thing 

Wherein 111 catch the conscience of the king. 

Act IL Sc. 2. 



A king of shreds and patches. 

Act III. Sc. 4, 



A mockery king of snow. 

King Richard II. Act IV. Sc. I. 



SHAKKSPE^ARKAN QUOTATIONS 65 

If he be not fellow with the best king, thou 

shalt find the best king of good fellows. 

King Henry V. Act V. Sc. 2. 

Ay, every inch a king. 

King Lear. Act IV. Sc. 6. 



I,OVE 

In the sweetest bud 
The eating canker dwells; so eating love 

Inhabits in the finest wits of all. 

The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act I. Sc. i, 

/ 

Even so by love the young and tender wit 
Is turned to folly. 

Ibid. 

Jul. They do not love that do not show their love. 

Luc. O, they love least that let men know their 

love! 

Sc. 2. 

O, how this spring of love resembleth 

The uncertain glory of an April day! 

Sc. 3. 

lyove is blind. 

Act II. Sc. I. 

Though the chameleon I^ove can feed on the air, 

I am one that am nourished by my victuals. 

Ibid. 



66 SHAKESPEARKAN QUOTATIONS 

( Val. ) Love hath twent}^ pair of eyes. 



SC.4.JJ 



( Thu.) They say that love hath not an eye at all. 

Ibid. 



Love hath chased sleep from my enthralled eyes 
And made them watchers of mine own heart's 
sorrow. 

The Tv/o Gentlemen of Verona. Act II. Sc. 4. 



Love 's a mighty lord. 

Ibid. 

For love, thou know'st, is full of jealousy! 

Ibid. 



Love bade me swear and Love bids me forswear. 

O, sweet suggesting Love! 

Sc. 6. 

Didst thou but know the inly touch of love, 

Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire wdth snow 

As seek to quench the fire of love with words. 

Sc. 7. 

For Love is like a child, 

That longs for everything that he can come by. 

Act III. Sc. I. 

Yet, spaniel-like, the more she spurns my love, 

The more it grows and fawneth on her still. 

Act IV. Sc. 2. 



SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 6^ 

But love will not be spurr'd to what it loathes. 

Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act V. Sc. i. 



O, 'tis the curse in love, and still approved, 

When women cannot love where they're beloved! 

Sc. 4. 

The course of true love never did run smooth. 

Midsummer Night's Dream. Act I. Sc. i. 

O, then, what graces in my love do dwell, 

That he hath turn'd a heaven unto a hell! 

Ibid. 

Things base and vile, holding no quantity, 

lyove can transpose to form and dignity. 

Ibid. 

lyove looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; 

And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind. 

Ibid. 

And therefore is lyOve said to be a child, 
Because in choice he is so oft beguiled. 

Ibid. 

As waggish boys in games themselves forswear, 

So the boy love is perjured everywhere. 

Ibid. 

lyOve, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity 

In least speak most, to my capacity. 

Act V. Sc. I. 



68 SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 

But love is blind and lovers can not see 

The pretty follies that themselves commit. 

The Merchant of Venice. Act II. Sc. 6. 



Love is merely a madness, and .... deserves 

as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do. 
As You Like It. Act III. Sc. 2. 



Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in 

taste: 
For valour, is not love a Hercules? 

Love's Labour's Lost. Act. IV. Sc. 3. 

And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods J J 

Make heaven drowsy w4th the harmonv. " ' 

Ibid. 

In love the heavens themselves do guide the 

state; 

Money buys lands, and w4ves are sold b}^ fate. 

The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act V. Sc. 5. 

Love-thoughts lie rich when canopied with 
bowers. 

Twelfth Night. Act I. Sc. i. 

Love sought is good, but given unsought is 

better. 

Act III. Sc. I. 

She never told her love, 

But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, 

Feed on her damask cheek. 

Twelfth Night. Act II. So. 4. 



SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 69 

If love be blind, love can not hit the mark. 

Romeo and Juliet. Act II. Sc. i. 

Young men's love then lies 

Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes. 

Sc. 3. 

Ivove's heralds should be thoughts, 
Which ten times faster glide than the sun's 
beams. 

Sc. 5. 

Love's reason 's without reason. 

Cymbeline. Act IV. Sc, 2. 

Speak low, if you speak love. 

Much Ado About Nothing. Act II. Sc. i. 

This is the very ecstasy of love. 

Hamlet. Act II. Sc. i. 

The pangs of despised love. 

Act III. Sc. I. 



What my love is, proof hath made you know; 
And as my love is sized, my fear is so. 

Sc. 2. 

Where love is great the littlest doubts are fear; 

Where little fears grow great, great love grows 

there. 

Ibid. 

There's beggary in the love that can be reckoned. 

Antony and Cleopatra. Act I. .Sc. i. 



yo SHAKESPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 

LIFE 

I do not set my life at a pin's fee. 

Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 4. 

I can not tell what you and other men 

Think of this life; but, for my single self, 

I had as lief not be as live to be 

In awe of such a thing as I myself. 

Julius Caesar. Act I. Sc. 2. 

I bear a charmed life. 

Macbeth. Act V. Sc. 8. 

He hath a daily beauty in his life. 

Othello. Act V. Sc. i. 

And this our life, exempt from public haunt, 
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running 

brooks, 
Sermons in stones and good in everything. 

As You Like It. Act II. Sc. i. 



Think you I bear the shears of destiny ? 
Have I commandment on the pulse of life ? 

King John. Act IV. Sc. 2. 

That life is better life, past fearing death. 
Than that which lives to fear. 

Measure for Measure. Act V. Sc. i. 

O, this life 

Is nobler than attending for a check. 

Prouder than rustling in unpaid-for silk. 

Cymbeline Act III. Sc. 3. 



SHAKKSPKARBAN QUOTATIONS 7I 

MAN 

O, how wretched 

Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favours! 
King Henry VIIL Act III. Sc. 2. 

An old man, broken with the storms of state, 

Is come to lay his weary bones among ye. 

Act IV. Sc. 2. 

This is a slight unmeritable man, 

Meet to be sent on errands. 

Julius Caesar. Act IV. Sc. i. 

There's many a man hath more hair than wit. 

Comedy of Errors. Act II. Sc. 2. 



I am a woman's man and besides myself. 

Act. III. Sc. 2. 



A man of my kidney. 
Merry Wives of Windsor. Act III. Sc. 5. 

I am a man 

More sinn'd against than sinning. 

King Lear. Act III. Sc. 2. 

He can not be a perfedl man, 

Not being tried and tutor'd in the world. 
The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act I. Sc. 3. 



A man I am cross' d with adversity. 

Act IV. Sc. I. 



72 SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 

O heaven ! were man 

But constant, he were perfect. 

Act V. Sc. 4- 

Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice. 

Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 3. 

Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judg- 
ment. 

Ibid. 

Give me that man 
That is not passion's slave. 

Act III. Sc. 2. 

What is a man 

If his chief good and market of his time 

Be but to sleep and feed ? 

Act IV. Sc. 4. 



MEN 

Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues 

We write in water. 

King Henry VIII. Act IV. Sc. 2. 

But we are all men, 
In our own natures frail, and capable 
Of our flesh: few are angels. 

Act V. Sc. 3. 

Men at some time are masters of their fates. 

Julius Caesar. Act I. Sc. 2. 



SHAKKSPE^ARKAN QUOTATIONS 73 

Let me have men about me that are fat; 

Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o' nights. 

Ibid. 

The evil that men do lives after them; 

The good is oft interred with their bones. 

Act III. Sc. 2. 



They say, best men are moulded out of faults. 
Measure for Measure. Act V. Sc. i. 



O, what men dare do ! what men may do ! what 

men daily do, not knowing what they do ! 

Much Ado About Nothing. Act IV. Sc. i. 

Men's vows are women's traitors! 

Cymbeline. Act III. Sc. 4. 

O, give me the spare men and spare me the great 
ones. 

King Henry IV. Part II. Act III. Sc. 2. 



MKRCY 
Mercy is not itself that oft looks so. 

Measure for Measure. Act II. Sc. i. 



No ceremony that to great ones 'longs . 
Becomes them with one-half so good a grace 
As mercy does. 



Sc. 2. 



74 SHAKESPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 

Lawful mercy 

Is nothing kin to foul redemption. 

Sc. 4, 



Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge. 

Titus Andronicus. Act I. Sc. i. 



The quality of mercy is not strained, 

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven 

Upon the place beneath. 

The Merchant of Venice. Act IV. Sc. i. 



But mercy is above this sceptred sway. 

Ibid 



And earthl}^ power doth then show likest God's 

When mercy seasons justice. 

Ibid. 

We do pray for mercy; 

And that same prayer doth teach us all to render 

The deeds of merc3^ 

Ibid. 



The gates of mercy shall be all shut up. 

King Henry V. Act III. Sc. 3. 



SHAKE^SPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 75 

MUSIC 

Makes a swan-like end, 
Fading in music. 

Merchant of Venice. Act III. Sc. 2. 

Here will we sit and let the sounds of music creep 

in our ears. 

Act V. Sc. I. 

The man that hath no music in himself, 

Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds. 

Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils: . . . 

I^t no such man be trusted. 

Ibid. 

It will discourse most eloquent music. 

Hamlet. Act III. Sc. 2. 

If music be the food of love, play on. 

Twelfth Night. Act I. Sc. i. 

I had rather hear you to solicit that 

Than music from the spheres. 

Act III. Sc. 2. 

. In sweet music is such art. 

Killing care and grief of heart. 

Fall asleep, or hearing, die. 

King Henry VIII. Song. Act III. Sc. i. 

Tax not so bad a voice 

To slander music any more than once. 

Much Ado About Nothing. Act II. Sc. 3. 



76 SHAKESPKARBAN QUOTATIONS 

Wilt thou have music? hark! Apollo plays 

And twenty caged nightingales do sing. 

Taming of the Shrew. Induction. Sc. 2. 

One whom the music of his own vain tongue 

Doth ravish like enchanting harmony. 

Love's Labour's Lost. Act I. Sc. i. 



The music of the spheres! 

Pericles. Act V. Sc. i. 



MADNESS 

I am but mad north-north-west; when the wind is 

southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw. 

Hamlet. Act IL Sc. 2. 

Though this be madness, yet there is method 

in^' 

Ibid. 

Mad call I it; for, to define true madness. 

What is 't but to be nothing else but mad ? 

Ibid. 



That he is mad His true; 'tis true, 'tis pity; 

And pity 'tis, 'tis true. 

Ibid. 



SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS ^^ 

Madness in great ones must not unwatched go. 

Act III. Sc. I. 



If she be mad, — as I believe, no other, — 

Her madness hath the oddest frame of sense. 

Measure for Measure. Act V. Sc. i. 

Good Lord, what madness rules in brain-sick 
men! 

King Henry VI. Part I. Act IV. Sc. i. 

This is very midsummer madness. 

Twelfth Night. Act III. Sc. 4. 

Mad world! mad kings! mad composition! 

King John. Act II. Sc. i. 

I am not mad; I would to heaven I were! 

Act III. Sc. 4. 

I am not mad; too well, too well I feel 
The different plague of each calamity. 

Ibid. 



Thou art essentially mad, without seeming so. 

King Henry IV. Act II. Sc. 4. 



O, that way madness lies; let me shun that. 

King Lear. Act III. Sc. 4, 



78 SHAKKSPEAREAX QUOTATIONS 

NAME 

Your name is great 

In mouths of wisest censure. 

Othello. Act II. Sc. 3. 

Good name in man and woman 

Is the immediate jewel of their souls. 

Act III. Sc. 3. 

But he that filches from me my good name 

Robs me of that which not enriches him 

And makes me poor indeed. 

Ibid. 

Wliat ' s in a name ? that which we call a rose 

By an}^ other name would smeU as sweet. 

Romeo and Juliet. Act II. Sc. 2. 

Frailt}', th}' name is woman ! 

Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 2. 

I can not tell what the dickens his name is. 

The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act III. Sc. 2. 



OFFENCE 

Hence hath offence his quick celerity, 

When it is borne in high authority. 

Measure for Measure. Act IV. Sc. 2. 



O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven. 

Hamlet. Act III. Sc. 3. 



SHAKBSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 79 

In the corrupted currents of this world 

Offence* s gilded hand may shove by justice. 

Ibid. 

And where the offence is let the great axe fall. 

Act. IV. Sc. 5. 

All 's not offence that indiscretion finds 

And dotage terms so. 

King Lear. Act II. So. 4. 



OBSERVATION 

He is a great observer, and he looks 

Quite through the deeds of men. 

Julius Caesar. Act I. Sc. 2. 

The observed of all observers. 

Hamlet. Act III. Sc. i. 

By my penny of observation. 

Love's Labour's Lost. Act III. Sc. i. 

What observation madest thou in this case 

Of his heart's meteors tilting in his face? 

The Comedy of Errors. Act IV. Sc. 2. 

For he is but a bastard to the time 

That doth not smack of observation. 

King John. Act I. Sc. i. 

He hath strange places cramm'd with observation. 
As You Like It. Act II. Sc. 7, 



i 



8o SHAKKSPKARHAN QUOTATIONS 

PRAYER 

Being thus frighted swears a prayer or two, 
And sleeps again. 

Romeo and Juliet. Act I. Sc. 4. 

Nor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses. 

Act III. Sc. I. 

He prays but faintly and would be denied; 

We pray with heart and soul and all beside. 

King Richard II. Act V. Sc. 3. 






His prayers are full of false hypocrisy; 
Ours of true zeal and deep integrity. 



Ibid. 



Our pra3''ers do out-pray his; then let them have 

That mercy which true prayer ought to have. 

Ibid. 

He scorns to say his prayers, lest a' should be 

thought a coward. 

King Henry V. Act III. Sc. 2. 

And what's in prayer but this two-fold force, 
To be forestalled ere we come to fall, 
Or pardon' d being down ? 

Hamlet. Act III. Sc. 3. 

With true prayers 

That shall be up at heaven and enter there 

Ere sun-rise, prayers from preserved souls. 

Measure for Measure. Act II. Sc. s. 



SHAKBSPEJARKAN QUOTATIONS 8l 

When I would pray and tiiink, I think and pray 

To several subjects. 

Sc. 4. 

Truly ... I would desire you to clap into 

your prayers. 

Act IV. Sc. 3. 

And my ending is despair, 
Unless I be relieved by prayer, 
Which pierces so that it assaults 
Mercy itself and frees all faults. 

The Tempest Epilogue. 



The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace. 

Midsummer Night's Dream. Act 11. Sc. 2. 



If when you make your prayers, 

God should be so obdurate as yourselves. 

How would it fare with your departed souls ? 

King Henry VL Part II. Act IV. Sc. 7. 



I have said my prayers and devil Envy say Amen. 
Troilus and Cressida. Act II. Sc. 3. 



If I could pray to move prayers would move me. 

Julius Caesar. Act III. Sc. i. 



When thou hast leisure say thy prayers. 

All's Well That Ends Well. Act I. Sc. i. 



82 SHAKESPKAREAN QUOTATIONS 

PATIENCE 

She sat like patience on a monument 
Smiling at grief. 

Twelfth Night. Act II. Sc. 4. 

I thank God I have as little patience as another 
man. 

Love's Labour's Lost. Act L Sc. i. 

For a very little thief of occasion will rob you of 
a great deal of patience. 

Coriolanus. Act IL Sc. i. 

That which in mean men we entitle patience 
Is pale cowardice in noble breasts. 

King Richard II. Act L Sc. 2 

Patience is stale, and I am weary of it. 

Act V. Sc. 5 

Though patience be a tired mare, yet she wil 
plod. 

King Henry V. Act IL Sc. i 

O, you blessed ministers above, 
Keep me in patience! 

Measure for Measure. Act V. Sc. i, 

How poor are they that have not patience! 

Othello. Act II. Sc. 3 

Patience, thou young and rose-lipp'd cherubin. 

Act IV. Sc. 2, 



shakkspe;arkan quotations 83 

Here will be an old abusing of God's patience 

and the king's English. 

The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act I. Sc. 4. 

Patience and sorrow strove 

Who should express her goodliest. 

King Lear. Act IV. Sc. 3. 

'Tis all men's office to speak patience 
To those that wring under the load of sorrow. 

Much Ado About Nothing. Act V. Sc. i. 



PEACK 

In peace there's nothing so becomes a man 
As modest stillness and humility. 

King Henry V. Act III. Sc. i. 

Who should study to prefer a peace, 

If holy churchmen take delight in broils? 

King Henry VI. Part I. Act III. Sc. i. 

Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace, 

Have no delight to pass away the time. 

King Richard III. Act I. Sc. i. 

Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace. 

To silence envious tongues. 

King Henry VIII. Act III. Sc. 2. 

He gave his honours to the world again, 

His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace. 

Act IV. Sc. 2 



84 SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 

The peace of heaven is theirs that lift their 

swords 

In such a just and charitable war. 

King John. Act II. Sc. i. 



And on the marriage-bed 

Of smiling peace to march a bloody host, 

And make a riot on the gentle brow 

Of true sincerity ? 

Act III. Sc. I. 



In war was never lion raged more fierce, 

In peace was never gentle lamb more mild. 

King Richard II. Act II. Sc. i. 



The cankers of a calm world and a long peace. 

King Henry IV. Part I. Act IV. Sc. 2. 



I speak of peace, while covert enmity 

Under the smile of safety wounds the world. 

Part II. Induction. 



Out of the speech of peace that bears such grace, 

Into the harsh and boisterous tongue of war ? 

Act IV. Sc. I. 



Our peace will, like a broken limb united., 

Grow stronger for the breaking. 

Ibid. 



SHAKKSPEJARBAN QUO'TAI'IONS 85 

PITY 

Forget to pity him, lest thy pity prove 

A serpent that will sting thee to the heart. 

King Richard II. Act V. Sc. 3. 

He hath a tear for pity and a hand 

Open as day for meeting charity. 

King Henry IV. Part II. Act IV. Sc. 4. 



Pity was all the fault that was in me. 

King Henry VI. Part II. Act III. Sc. i. 



O, pity, pity, gentle heaven, pity! 

Part III. Act 11. Sc. 5. 



But yet the pity of it, lago! 

O lago, the pity of it, lago! 

Othello. Act IV. Sc. i. 



And wiped our eyes 

Of drops that sacred pity hath engendered. 

As You Like It. Act II. Sc. 7. 



Is there no pity sitting in the clouds, 

That sees into the bottom of my grief ? 

Romeo and Juliet. Act III. Sc. 5. 



86 SHAKESPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 



PHILOSOPHY 

There are more things in heaven and earth, 

Horatio, 

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. 

Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 5. 



There is something in this more than natural, if 

philosophy could find it out. 

Act IL Sc. 2. 

To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die; 

With all these living in philosophy. 

Love's Labour's Lost. Act L Sc. i. 



Of your philosophy you make no use, 

If you give place to accidental evils. 

Julius Caesar. Act IV. Sc. 3. 



Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy. 

Romeo and Juliet. Act IIL Sc. 3, 



For there was never yet philosopher 

That could endure the toothache patiently. 

Much Ado About Nothing. Act V. Sc. i. 

I am 

Glad that you thus continue your resolve 

To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy. 

Taming of the Shrew. Act L Sc. I. 



SHAKD^PE^ARKAN QUOTATIONS 87 

QUARREly 

Beware 

Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in, 

Bear 't that the opposed may beware of thee. 

Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 3. 

But greatly to find quarrel in a straw 

When honour 's at the stake. 

Act IV. Sc. 4. 



Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just. 

King Henry VI. Part II. Act III. Sc. 2. 



Sudden and quick in quarrel. 

As You Like It. Act 11. Sc. 7. 



O ... we quarrel in print, by the book; 
as you have books for good manners. 

As You Like It. Act V. Sc. 4. 

Thy head is as full of quarrels as an egg is full 
of meat. 

Romeo and Juliet. Act III. Sc. i. 



In a false quarrel there is no true valour. 

Much Ado About Nothing. Act V. Sc. i. 



88 SHAKKSPEARKAN QUOTATIONS 

REMEDY 

Things without all remedy 

Should be without regard. 

Macbeth. Act III. Sc. 2. 

And He that might the vantage best have took 

Found out the remedy. 

Measure for Measure. Act II. Sc. 2. 

I can get no remedy against this consumption of 

the purse. 

King Henry IV. Part II. Act I. Sc. 2. 

When remedies are past, the griefs are ended 

By seeing the worst, which late on hopes depended. 

Othello. Act I. Sc. 3. 

Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, 

Which we ascribe to heaven. 

All's Well That Ends Well. Act I. Sc. i. 



REASON 

Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much. 

As You Like It. Act III. Sc. 2. 



The will of man is by his reason sway'd. 

Midsummer Night's Dream. Act II. Sc. 2. 



Reason becomes the marshal to my will. 

Ibid. 



SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 89 

To say the truth, reason and love keep little 

company together nowadays. 

^ Act III. Sc. I. 

Reason thus with life : 

If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing 

That none but fools would keep. 

Measure for Measure. Act III. Sc. I. 



Now, see that noble and most sovereign reason, 

I^ike sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh. 

Hamlet. Act III. Sc. i. 



SOUI. 

O my prophetic soul ! 

Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 5. 

Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice, 

And could of men distinguish, her eleAion 

Hath seard thee for herself. 

Act III. Sc. 2. 

O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious 
periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters. 



O limed soul, that, struggling to be free, 
Art more engaged ! 



Sc. 3. 



Lay not that flattering unAion to your soul. 

^ Act III. Sc. 4. 



k 



90 SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 

My soul is full of discord and dismay. 

Act IV. Sc. 1 

To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is, 

Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss. 

Sc. 5. 

I have a kind soul that would give 3'ou thanks 

And knows not how to do it but with tears. 

King John. Act V. Sc. 7. 

Now m}^ soul hath elbow-room. 

Ibid. 

And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings 

His soul and body to their lasting rest. 

Ibid. 

Plain well-meaning soul, 

Whom fair befal in heaven 'mongst happy souls! 
King Richard II. Act II. Sec. i. 

Now hast my soul brought forth her prodigy. 

Sec. 2. 

An evil soul producing holy witness 

Is like a villain with a smiling cheek. 

The Merchant of Venice. Act I. Sc. 3. 

A wretched soul, bruised with adversity. 

The Comedy of Errors. Act II. Sc. I. 



All the souls that were were forfeit once. 

Measure for Measure, Act II. Sc. 2. 



SHAKKSPE^ARKAN QUOTAI'IONS 9 1 

The soul of this man is his clothes. 

All's Well That Ends Well. Act II. Sc. 5. 

I have a soul of lead 

So stakes me to the ground I can not move. 

Romeo and Juliet. Act I. Sc. 4. 

I will deal in this 
As secretly and justly as your soul 
Should with your body. 

Much Ado About Nothing. Act IV. Sc. I. 



SORROW 

O, if thou teach me to believe this sorrow, 

Teach thou this sorrow how to make me die. 

King John. Act III. Sc. I. 



I will instruct my sorrows to be proud. 

Ibid. 



Here I and sorrows sit. 

Ibid. 



But now will canker sorrow eat my bud 

And chase the native beauty from, his cheek. 

Sc. 4. 



To seek out sorrow that dwells everywhere. 

King Richard II. Act I. Sc. 2. 



92 SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 

For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite 

The man that mocks at it and sets it light. 

Sc. 3. 

Fell sorrow's tooth doth never rankle more 

Than when he bites, but lanceth not the sore. 

Ibid. 

Give sorrow leave awhile to tutor me 

To this submission. 

Act IV. Sc. I. 

One sorrow never comes but brings an heir. 

Pericles. Act I. Sc. 4. 

WHien sorrows come, they come not single spies. 

But in battalions. 

Hamlet. Act IV. Sc. 5. 

Are you like the painting of a sorrow, 

A face without a heart ? 

Sc. 7. 

Sorrow would be a rarity most beloved, 

If all could so become it. 

King Lear. Act IV. Sc. 3. 

Affliction may one day smile again; and till then. 
Sit thee down, sorrow. 

Love's Labour's Lost. Act I. Sc. i. 

And sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow* s eye, 

Steal me awhile from mine own company. 

Midsummer Night's Dream. Act III Sc. 2, 



SHAKi^PKARBAN QUOTATIONS 93 

But sorrow, that is couched in seeming gladness, 

Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness. 

Troilus and Cresseda. Act I. Sc. i. 

Sorrow concealed, like an oven stopped. 

Doth bum the heart to cinders where it is. 

Titus Andronicus. Act II. Sc. 4. 



Is not my sorrow deep, having no bottom ? 

Act III. Sc. I. 



SLEEP 
O sleep, thou ape of death, lie dull upon her! 

Cymbeline. Act II. Sc. 2. 



He that sleeps feels not the toothache. 

Act V. Sc. 4. 



Sleep shall neither night nor day 

Hang upon his pent-house lid. 

Macbeth. Act I. Sc. 3. 



The innocent sleep. 

Sleep that knits up the ravelPd sleave of care. 

Act II. Sc. 2. 



O sleep, O gentle sleep, 

Nature's soft nurse ! 

King Henry IV. Part II. Act III. Sc. i. 



94 SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 

SAINT 



I 



And seem a saint, when most I play the devil. 
King Richard III. Act I. Sc. 3. 

O, thou hast damnable iteration, and art indeed 

able to corrupt a saint. 

King Henry IV. Part I. Act I. Sc. 2. 

I hold you as a thing ensky'd, and sainted .... 

And to be talk'd with in sincerity, 

As with a saint. 

Measure for Measure. Act I. Sc. 5. 

I conjure thee by all the saints in heaven ! 

The Comedy of Errors. Act IV. Sc. 4. 



SIN 

Some sins do bear their privilege on earth. 

King John. Act I. Sc. i. 

'Tis no sin for a man to labour in his vocation. 

King Henry IV. Part I. Act I. Sc. 2. 

If to be old and merry be a vSin, then many an old 

host that I know is damned. 

King Henry IV. Part I. Act II. Sc. 4. 

Commit 

The oldest sins the newest kind of wa3^s ? 

Part II. Act IV. Sc. 5. 



SHAKE)SPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 95 

Self-love . . is not so vile a sin 
As self-neglecting. 

King Henry V. Act II. Sc. 4. 

But if it be a sin to covet honour, 

I am the most offending soul alive. 

Act IV. So. 3. 

It is a great sin to swear unto a sin, 

But greater sin to keep a sinful oath. 

King Henry VI. Part II. Act V. Sc. i. 

But I am in 
So far in blood that sin will pluck on sin. 

King Richard III. Act IV. Sc. 2. 

But cardinal sins and hollow hearts I fear ye. 

King Henry VIII. Act III. Sc. i. 

By that sin fell the angels. 

Sc. 2. 



Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall. 

Measure for Measure. Act II. Sc. i. 



Our compeU'd sins 

Stand more for number than for accompt. 

Sc. 4. 

Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy. 

Timon of Athens. Act III. Sc. 5. 



You can not make gross sins look clear. 

Ibid. 



96 SHAKESPE^ARKAN QUOTATIONS 

The sin of my ingratitude even now 

Was heavy on me. 

Macbeth. Act I. Sc. 4. 



Teadi sin the carriage of a holy saint. 

Comedy of Errors. Act III. Sc. i. 



Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin. 

Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 5. 



Few love to hear the sins they love to act. 

Pericles. Act I. Sc. i. 



For he's no man on whom perfections wait 

That, knowing sin within, will touch the gate. 

Ibid. 



One sin, I know, another doth provoke. 

Ibid. 



When devils will the blackest sins put on. 

They do suggest at first with heavenly shows. 

Othello. Act II. Sc. 3. 

O, what authority and show of truth 

Can cunning sin cover itself withal! 

Much Ado About Nothing. Act IV. Sc, i. 



SHAKKSPKARBAN QUCTATIONS 97 

SlyANDER 

Only his gift is in devising impossible vslanders. 
Much Ado About Nothing. Act II. Sc. i. 

Thy slander hath gone through and through her 

heart. 

Act V. Sc. I. 

Slander' d to death by villains. 

Ibid. 

Betrays to slander, 

Whose sting is sharper than the sword's. 

The Winter's Tale. Act II. Sc. 3. 

No, 'tis slander. 

Whose edge is sharper than the sword, whose 

tongue 

Outvenoms all the worms of Nile. 

Cymbeline. Act III. Sc. 4. 

For slander lives upon succession, 

Forever housed where it gets possession. 

The Comedy of Errors. Act. III. Sc. i. 

That is no slander which is a truth. 

Romeo and Juliet. Act IV. Sc. i. 

There is no slander in an allowed fool, though 
he do nothing but rail. 

Twelfth Night. Act I. Sc. 5. 

A partial slander sought I to avoid, 

And in the sentence my own life destroy' d. 

King Richard II. Act I. Sc. 3. 



98 SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 

TOXGL*E 



1 



He speaks plain cannon fire, and smoke, and 

bounce; 

He gives the bastinado with his tongue. 

King John. Act. II. Sc. i. 

O, that my tongue were in the thunder's mouth! 

Act III. Sc. 4. 

My tongue shall hush again this storm of war 
And make fair weather in vour blustering land. 

Act V. Sc. 2. 



Let the tongue of war 
Plead for our interest and our being here. 

Ibid. 



O, but they say the tongues of dying men 
Enforce attention like deep harmony. 

King Richard II. Act II. Sc. i. 



He does me double wrong 
That wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue. 

Act III. Sc. 2. 



My tongue could never learn sweet smoothing 

words. 

King Richard III. Act I. Sc. 2 

Every tongue brings in a several tale, 

And every tale condemns me for a \'illain. 

Act V. Sc, 3. 



SHAKESPKARBAN QUOTATIONS 99 

How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night, 

lyike softest music to attending ears ! 

Romeo and Juliet. Act II. Sc. 2. 

That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man, 

If with his tongue he can not win a woman. 

The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act III. Sc. i. 

While thou livest, keep a good tongue in thy 

head. 

The Tempest. Act III. Sc. 2. 

The Iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve. 
The Midsummer Night's Dream. Act V. Sc. i. 

No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp. 

And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee 

Where thrift may follow fawning. 
^< Hamlet. Act III. Sc. 2. 

J Put a tongue 

In every wound of Caesar that should move 

The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny. 

Julius Caesar. Act III. Sc. 2. 



TIME 

But here, upon this bank and shoal o' time, 

We 'Id jump the life to come. 

Macbeth. Act I. Sc. 7. 

lyive to be the vShow and gaze o' the time. 

Act V. Sc. 8. 



I 



lOO SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 

Time is a very bankrupt, and owes more than 

he 's worth to season. 

The Comedy of Errors. Act IV. Sc. 3. 

Have 3^ou not heard men say, 

That Time comes steaUng on by night and day ? 

Ibid. 

If Time be in debt and theft, and a sergeant in 

the way, 

Hath he not reason to turn back an hour in a 

day? 

Ibid. 

The end crowns all, 
And that old common arbitrator. Time, 

Will one day end it. 

Troilus and Cressida. Act IV. Sc. 5. 

Old Time, the clock-setter, that bald sexton. Time, 

Is it as he will ? 

King John. Act III. Sc. i. 

O, call back yesterday, bid time return ! 

King Richard II. Act III. Sc. 2. 

Time shall unfold what plaited cunning hides. 

King Lear. Act I. Sc. i. 



The time is out of joint; O cursed spite, 

let it right ! 
Hamlet. Act I. So. 5. 



That ever I was born to set it right ! 



SHAKKSPKAR^AN QUOTATIONS IOj 

What seest thou else 

In the dark backward and abyss of time ? 

The Tempest, Act I. Sc. 2. 

The inaudible and noiseless foot of time. 

All's Well That Ends Well. Act V. Sc. 3. 

Time and the hour runs through the roughest 

day. 

Macbeth. Act I. Sc. 3. 

To beguile the time, 
Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye, 

Your hand, your tongue. 

Sc. 5. 



USES 

How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, 

Seem to me all the uses of this world! 

Hamlet. Act I, Sc. 2. 

For use almost can change the stamp of nature. 

Act III. Sc. 4. 



To what base uses we may return! 

Act V. Sc. ic 



How use doth breed a habit in a man! 

The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act V. Sc. 4. 

Sweet are the uses of adversity. 

As You Like It. Act II. Sc. i. 



I02 SHAKKSPKAREAN QUOTATIONS 

VIRTUE 

I see virtue in his looks. 
King Henry IV.' Part I. Act II. Sc. 4. 

Is there no virtue extant ? 

Ibid. 

Virtue is not regarded in handicrafts-men. 

King Henry VI. Part II. Act IV. Sc. 2. 

Her virtues graced with external gifts 

Do breed love's settled passions in my heart. 

Act. V. Sc. 5. 

Virtue itself 'scapes not calumnious strokes. 

Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 3. 

But virtue, as it never will be moved, 

Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven. 

Sc. 5. 

Assume a virtue, if you have it not. 

Act III. Sc. 4. 

Virtue itself of vice must beg pardon. 

Ibid. 

Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, 

And vice sometimes by action dignified. 

Romeo and Juliet. Act II. Sc. 3. 

If our virtues 

Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike 

As if we had them not. 

Measure for Measure. Act I. Sc. i. 



SHAKBSPEJARKAN QUOTATIONS IO3 

Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. 

Act III. Sc. I. 



Make a virtue of necessity. 

Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act IV. Sc. i. 



The rarer action is 
In virtue than in vengeance. 

The Tempest. Act V. Sc. i. 



You nickname virtue . . . 

For virtue's ofl&ce never breaks men's troth. 

Love's Labour's Lost. Act V. Sc. 2. 

Virtue is beauty, but the beauteous evil 

Are empty trunks o'erflourished with the devil. 
Twelfth Night. Act III. Sc. 4. 

My heart laments that virtue can not live 

Out of the teeth of emulation. 

Julius Csesar. Act II. Sc. 3. 

So our virtues 
Ifie in the interpretation of the time. 

Coriolanus. Act IV. Sc. 7. 

Can virtue hide itself? 
Much Ado About Nothing. Act II. Sc. i. 



I04 SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 

VILLAIN 

O villain! thou wilt be condemned into everlast- 
ing redemption for this. 

Much Ado About Nothing. Act IV. Sc 2. 

Villain and he be many miles asunder. 

Romeo and Juliet. Act III. Sc. 5. 

O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain! 

Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 5. 

My tables, — meet it is I set it down. 

That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain. 

Ibid. 

As if we were villains by necessity; fools by 
heavenly compulsion. 

King Lear. Act I. Sc. 2. 

Though I can not be said to be a flattering honest 
man, it must not be denied but I am a plain- 
dealing villain. 

Much Ado About Nothing. Act I. Sc. 3. 

Precise villains they are, that I am sure of; and 

void of all profanation in the world that good 

Christians ought to have. 

Measure for Measure. Act II. Sc. i. 

Thou wert better thou hadst struck thy mother, 

thou paper- faced villain. 

King Henry IV. Part 11. Act V. Sc. 4. 



SHAKKSPBARKAN QUOTATIONS I05 

The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it 

shall go hard but I will better the instruction. 
The Merchant of Venice. Act III. Sc. i. 



WOMAN 
A poor lone woman. 

King Henry IV. Part II. Act II. Sc. i, 



These women are shrewd tempters with their 
tongues. 

King Henry VL Part I. Act I. Sc. 2. 



O most pernicious woman! 

Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 5. 



How hard it is for women to keep counsel! 

Julius Caesar. Act II. Sc. 4. 

Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered 
with a piece of valiant dust? to make an 
account of her life to a clod of wayward marl ? 
Much Ado About Nothing. Act II. Sc. i. 

Let not women's weapons, water-drops. 
Stain my man's cheeks! 

King Lear. Act II. Sc. 4. 

I have no other but a woman's reason; 

I think him so because I think him so. 

The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act I. Sc. 2. 



I06 SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 

O, that she could speak now like a wood woman! 

Act II. Sc. 3. 



A woman sometimes scorns what best contents 

her. 

Act III. Sc. I. 

The venom clamours of a jealous woman 

Poisons more deadly than a mad dog's tooth. 
The Comedy of Errors. Act V. Sc. i. 

For where is any author in the world 

Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye? 

Love's Labour's Lost. Act IV. Sc. 3. 

She is a woman, therefore may be woo'd; 

She is a woman, therefore may be won. 

Titus Andronicus. Act II. Sc. i. 



A woman moved is like a fountain troubled. 

The Taming of the Shrew. Act V. Sc. 2. 



A woman would run through fire and water for 

such a kind heart. 

Merry Wives of Windsor. Act III. Sc. 4. 



SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 107 

WORI.D 

Hereafter, in a better world than this, 

I shall desire more love and knowledge of you. 
As You Like It. Act I. Sc. 2. 



O, how full of briers is this working-day world! 

Sc. 3. 

O, what a world is this, when what is comely 
Envenoms him that bears it! 

Act II. Sc. 3. 

You have too much respedl upon the world; 

They lose it that do buy it with much care. 

The Merchant of Venice. Act I. Sc. i. 



I hold the world but as the world ... 

A stage where every man must play a part, 

And mine a sad one. 

Ibid. 



The world is still deceived with ornament. 

Act III. Sc. 2. 



The world is not thy friend nor the world's law; 

The world affords no law to make thee rich. 

Romeo and Juliet. Act V. Sc. i. 

An arrant traitor as any is in the universal world, 

or in France, or in England! 

King Henry V. Act IV. Sc. 8. 



I08 SHAKKSPKAREAN QUOTATIONS 

Why, then the world's mine oyster, 

Which I with sword will open. 

The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act II. Sc. 2. 

O world, how apt the poor are to be proud ! 

Twelfth Night. Act III. Sc. i. 

This world to me is like a lasting storm, 
Whirring me from my friends. 

Pericles. Act IV. Sc. i. 



O, let the vile world end, 

And the promised flames of the last day 

Knit earth and heaven together. 

King Henry VI. Act V. Sc. 2. 

It is a reeling world, indeed. 

King Richard III. Act III. Sc. 2. 



WORDS 

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: 
Words without thoughts never to heaven go. 

Hamlet. Act III. Sc. 3. 

One doth not know 

How much an ill word may empoison liking. 
Much Ado About Nothing. Act III. Sc. i. 



Charm ache with air, and agony with words. 

Act V. Sc. I. 



SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTAMONS lOQ 

O, they have lived long on the alms-basket of 

words. 

Love's Labour's Lost. Act V. Sc. i. 

Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief. 

Sc. 2. 

But for your words, they rob the Hybla bees, 

And leave them honeyless. 

Julius Caesar. Act V. Sc. i. 

A fine volley of words .... and quickly 

shot off. 

The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act IL Sc. 4. 

You have an exchequer of words. 

Ibid. 

His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles, 

His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate. 

The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Ace IL Sc. 7. 

To be slow in words is a woman's only virtue. 

Act III. Sc. I. 



Where words are scarce they are seldom spent 

in vain. 
For they breathe truth that breathe their words 

in pain. 

King Richard II. Act II. Sc. i. 

Zounds! I was never so be thumped with words 

"^^tnce I first called my brother's father dad. 

King John. Act II. Sc. i. 



no SHAKESPEAREAN OUOTATIOXS 

The)' shoot but calm words folded up in smoke. 

Ibid. 

But words are words; I never yet did hear 
That the bruised heart was pierced through the 

ear. 

OtheUo. Act I. Sc. 3, 



WAR 

Now for the bare-picked bone of majesty 

Doth dogged war bristle his angry crest. 

King John." Act IV. Sc. 3. 

Away, and glister like the god of war. 

Act V. Sc. I. 

He is come to open 

The purple testament of bleeding war. 

King Richard II. Act III. Sc. 3. 

But when the blast of war blows in our ears, 

Then imitate the action of the tiger. 

King Henry V. Act III. Sc. i. 

The tyrant custom .... 

Hath made the flinty- and steel couch of war 

Mj' thrice-driven bed of down. 

Othello. Act I. Sc. 3. 

O, wither' d is the garland of the war! 

Antony and Cleopatra. Act IV. Sc, 15. 

Cry *' havoc " and let slip the dogs of war. 

Julius Caesar. Act III. Sc. i. 



SHAKKSPKAREJAN QUOTATIONS III 

WIT 

I shall ne'er be ware of mine own wit till I break 

my shins against it. 

As You Like It. Act II. Sc. 4. 

Make the doors upon a woman's wit and it will 

out at the casement. 

Act IV. Sc. I. 

There 's a skirmish of wit between them. 

Much Ado About Nothing. Act I. Sc. i. 



Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound's mouth. 

Act V, Se. 2. 



Devise, wit; write, pen. 

Love's Labour's Lost. Act L Sc. 2. 



That handful of wit ! 

Ah, . . . it is a most pathetical nit ! 

Act IV. Sc. I. 



He 's winding up the watch of his wit; by and 

by it will strike. 

The Tempest. Act IL Sc. i. 



When the age is in the wit is out. 

Much Ado About Nothing. Act IIL Sc. 5. 



A good wit will make UvSe of anything. 

King Henry IV. Part IL Act L Sc. 2. 



112 SHAKKSPEARKAN QUOTATIONS 

I am not only witty njyself, but the cause that 

wit is in other men. ■{ 

IbidP 



They have a plentiful lack of wit. 

Hamlet. Act II. Sc. i. 



Upon her wit doth earthly honours wait, 

And virtue stoops and trembles at her frown. 
Titus Andronicus. Act II. Sc. i. 



YOUTH 

We that are in the vaward of our youth. 

King Henry IV. Part II. Act I. Sc. 2. 



He was, indeed, the glass 

Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves. 

Act II. So. 3. 



And in the morn and liquid dew of youth 

Contagious blastments are most imminent. 

Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 3. 



He wears the rose 

Of youth upon him. 

Antony and Cleopatra. Act III. Sc. 13. 



SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS II3 

This morning, like the spirit of a youth 

That means to be of note, begins betimes. 

Act IV. Sc. 4. 



We have some salt of our youth in us. 

The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act II. Sc. 3. 



He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and 

he that hath no beard is less than a man. 

Much Ado About Nothing. Act II. Sc. i. 



Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits. 

The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act I. Sc. i. 



114 SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 

MISCELLANEOUS. 

A 

Thus can the demigod Authority 
Make us pay down for our oflFence by weight 
The words of heaven. 

Measure for Measure. Act. I. Sc. 2 

What authority surfeits on would relieve us. 

Coriolanus. Act I. Sc. 

O, some authority how to proceed; 

Some tricks, some quillets how to cheat the devil 
Love's Labour's Lost. Act IV, Sc. 3 

Out of my lean and low ability 
I'll lend you something. 

Twelfth Night. Act IIL Sc. 4. 

I dote on his very absence. 

The Merchant of Venice. Act L Sc. i. 

A goodly apple rotten at the heart. 

Sc. 3. 

Another lean unwashed artificer. 

King John. Act IV. Sc. 2. 

I^et me embrace thee, sour adversity, 

For wise men say it is the wisest course. 

King Henry VI. Part III. Act III. Sc. 2. 



SHAKKSPKAR1)AN QUOTATIONS II5 

To dance attendance on their lordships' pleasures. 
King Henry VIII. Act V. Sc. 2. 



Egregiously an ass. 

Othello. Act II. Sc. i. 



Smooth as monumental alabaster. 

Act V. Sc. 2. 



Season your admiration for a while. 

Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 2. 



'Tis not so above; 

There is no shuffling, there the action lies 

In his true nature. 

Act III. Sc. 3. 

About some act that has no relish of salvation 

in it. 

Ibid. 

Crabbed age and youth 
Can not live together. 

The Passionate Pilgrim, VIII. 

All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this 

little hand. 

Macbeth. ActV. Sc. i. 

I could find it in my heart to disgrace my man's 
apparel and to cry like a woman. 

As You Like It. Act II. Sc. 4. 



Il6 SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 

The amity that wisdom knits not, folly may 

easily untie. 

Troilus and Cressida. Act II. Sc. 3, 

If for I want that glib and oily art, 

To speak and purpose not. 

King Lear. Act I. Sc. i 

Preposterous ass, that never read so far 

To know the cause why music was ordained ! 

Taming of the Shrew. Act III. Sc. i 



B 

Eating the bitter bread of banishment. 

King Richard II. Act III. Sc. I, 

But in the way of bargain, mark ye me, 

I'll cavil on the ninth part of a hair. 

King Henry IV. Part I. Act III. Sc. i 

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once' 
more. 

King Henry V. Act III. Sc. i. 

Gets him to rest cramm'd with distressful bread. 

Act IV. Sc. I. 

'Tis better to be lowly born, 
And range with humble livers in content. 
Than to be perk'd up in a glistering grief. 
And wear a golden sorrow. 

King Henry VIII. Act II. Sc. 3. 



shake;spkarkan quotations 117 

Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks, 

Hamlet. Act II. Sc. 2. 



By and by is easily said. 

Act III. Sc. 2. 

A Cain-coloured beard. 

Merry Wives of Windsor. Act I. Sc. 4. 

A beggarly account of empty boxes. 

Romeo and Juliet. Act V. Sc. i. 

Kt tu, Brute! 

Julius Caesar. Act III. Sc. i. 

I am in blood 

Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more, 

Returning were as tedious as go o'er. 

Macbeth. Act III. Sc. 4. 



Shall I never see a bachelor of threescore again ? 

Much Ado About Nothing. Act I. Sc. i. 



** In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.'' 

Ibid. 



What need the bridge much broader than the 

flood? 

Ibid. 

I have for barbarism spoke more 

Than for that angel knowledge you can say. 

Love's Labour's Lost. Act I. Sc. i. 



Il8 SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 

A very beadle to a humorous sigh. 

Act III. Sc. I. 



lyct me take you a button-hole lower. 

ActV. Sc. 2, 



The true beginning of our end. 
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act V. Sc. i, 

'Tis not your inky brows, your black silk hair, 

Your bugle eye-balls, nor your cheek of cream, 

That can entame my spirits to your worship. 

As You Like It. Act III. Sc. 5. 

Tell me what blessings I have here alive, 

That I should fear to die ? 

The Winter's Tale. Act III. Sc. 2. 



We are bom to do benefits. 

Timon of Athens. Act I. Sc. 2, 



*Tis pity bounty had not eyes behind. 

That man might ne'er be wretched for his mind. 

Ibid. 



For bounty that makes gods, does still mar men. 

Act IV. Sc. 2. 



To business that we love we rise betime. 

And go to 't with delight. 

Antony and Cleopatra. Act IV. Sc. 4. 



shak:kspkare:an quotations 119 

For his bounty, 
There was no winter in 't; an autumn 't was 
That grew the more by reaping. 

Act V. Sc. 2. 

And the poor beetle that we tread upon, 

In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great 

As when a giant dies. 

Measure for Measure. Act III. Sc. i. 

Where the bee sucks, there suck I; 

In a cowslip's bell I lie. 

Tempest. Act V. Sc. I. 

Merrily, merrily shall I live now. 

Under the blossom that hangs on the bough. 

Ibid. 

lyight boats sail swift, though greater hulks 

draw deep. 

Troilus and Cressida. Act II. Sc. 3, 



Company, villanous company, hath been the 
spoil of me. 

King Henry IV. Part 1. Act III. Sc. 3. 

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. 

Part II. Act III. Sc. i. 



A rotten case abides no handling. 

Act IV. Sc. I. 



I20 SHAKKSPEARKAN QUOTATIONS 

There's a dish of leather coats for you. 

Act V. Sc. 3. 

It follows then the cat must stay at home. 

King Henry V. Act I. Sc. 2. 

The church's prayers made him so prosperous. 
King Henry VI. Part I. Act I. Sc. i. 



Had not churchmen pray'd 

His thread of life had not so soon decayed. 

Ibid, 

For friendly counsel cuts off many foes. 

King Henry VI. Part I. Act III. Sc. i. 

Banish the canker of ambitious thoughts. 

King Henry VI. Part II. Act I. Sc. 2. 

Small curs are not regarded when they grin. 

Act III. Sc. I. 

My crown is called content, 

A crown it is that seldom kings enjoy. 

Part III. Act. III. Sc. i. 

Deliver all with charity. 

King Henry VIII. Act I. Sc. 2. 

Your colt's tooth is not cast yet. 

Sc. 3. 

'Tis a cruelty 

To load a falling man. 

Aa V. Sc. 3. 



I 



*i 



SHAKBSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 121 

Through tatter' d clothes small vices do appear, 

Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. 

King Lear. Act IV. Sc. 6. 

At Christmas I no more desire a rose 

Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled mirth. 
Love's Labour's Lost. Act I. Sc. i. 



'' Past cure is still past care." 

Act V. Sc. 2. 



Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye, 

And where care lodges, sleep will never lie. 

Romeo and Juliet. Act II. Sc. 3. 

More than prince of cats, I can tell you. 

So. 4. 



'Tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers. 

Act IV. Sc. 2. 



A countenance more in sorrow than in anger. 

Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 2. 



A cutpurse of the empire. 

Act III. Sc. 4. 



The cat will mew and dog will have his day. 

Act V. Sc. I. 



The crowner hath sat on her, and finds it Chris- 
tian burial. 

Ibid. 



122 SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 

A century of praj^ers. 

C^'rnbeline. Act IV. Sc. 2. 

Good counsellors lack no clients. 

Measure for Measure. Act I. Sc. 2. 

Faith, thou hast some crotchets in th}' head. 

The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act. II. Sc. i. 

M}' cake is dough. 

Taraing of The Shrew. Act V. Sc. i. 

A harmless necessary cat. 

The Merchant of Venice. Act IV. Sc. I. 



For I am nothing, if not critical. 

Othello. Act II. Sc. i. 

But this denoted a foregone conclusion. 

Act III. Sc. 3. 

Comparisons are odorous. 

Much Ado About Nothing. Act III. Sc. 5. 

Shut up 
In measureless content. 

Macbeth. Act II. Sc. i. 

Confusion now hath made his masterpiece. 

Act II. Sc. 3. 

Two ma}' keep counsel when the third's away. 

Titus Andronicus. Act IV. Sc. 2. 

He that -^tU have a cake out of the wheat must 
needs tarr}' the grinding. 

Troilus and Cressida. Act I. Sc. i. 



Shakesp:e)arkan quotations 123 

Ceremony was but devised at first 

To set a gloss on faint deeds, hollow welcomes. 

Timon of Athens. Act I. Sc. 2. 

This was the most unkindest cut of all. 

Julius Caesar. Act III. Sc. 2. 

Celerity is never more admired 
Than by the negligent. 

Antony and Cleopatra. Act III. Sc. 7. 



D 



It is the disease of not listening, the malady of 
not marking. 

King Henry IV. Part II. Act I. Sc. 2. 

Civil dissension a viperous worm 

That gnaws the bowels of the commonwealth. 

King Henry VI. Part I. Act III. Sc. i. 



Delays have dangerous ends. 

Sc. 2. 



The gaudy, blabbing and remorseful day 

Is crept into the bosom of the sea. 

Part II. Act IV. Sc. i. 



Oh, that deceit should steal such gentle shapes, 

And with a virtuous vizard hide foul guile! 

King Richard III. Act II. Sc. 2. 



124 SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 

If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere 

well 

It were done quickly. 

Macbeth. Act I. Sc. 7. 



The wealthy ctirled darUngs of our nation. 

Othello. Act I. Sc. 2. 



To be once in doubt 

Is once to be resolv'd. 

Act III. Sc. 3. 

A deed without a name. 

Act IV. Sc. I. 

It is a good di\4ne that follows his own instruc- 
tions. 

The Merchant of Venice. Act I. Sc. 2. 

There is no darkness but ignorance. 

Twelfth Night. Act IV. Sc. 2. 

In the posteriors of this day, which the rude 

multitude call the afternoon. 

Love's Labour's Lost. Act V. Sc. i. 



The live-long day. 

Julius Caesar. Act I. Sc. i. 



We bum daylight. 

Romeo and Juliet. Act I. Sc. 4. 



SHAK^P^ARE^AN QUOTATIONS 1 25 

These violent delights have violent ends. 

Act II. Sc. 6. 



Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave ? 

Act III. Sc. 2. 



O, that deceit should dwell 

In such a gorgeous palace ! 

Ibid. 

The danmed use that word in hell. 

Sc. 3. 



All difficulties are but easy when they are known. 
Measure for Measure. Act IV. Sc. 2. 



I must go seek some dew-drops here, 

And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear. 

A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act II. Sc. i. 



I must dance barefoot on her wedding day. 

Taming of the Shrew. Act II. Sc. I. 



Diseases desperate grown 

By desperate appliance are relieved, 

Or not at all. 

Hamlet. Act IV. Sec. 3. 



126 SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 

E 

Everything is left at six and seven. 

King Richard. Act II. Sc. 2. 

Evermore thanks, the exchequer of the poor. 

Sc. 3. 

Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn ? 

King Henry IV. Part I. Act III. Sc. 3. 



For now sits Expedlation in the air. 

King Henry V. Act II. Prologue. 



Oft expectation fails and most oft there ^H 
Where most it promises. " 

AU's WeU That Ends WeU. Act II. Sc. i, 



Expectation whirls me round. 

Troilus and Cressida. Act III. Sc. 2. 



Palsied eld. 
Measure for Measure. Act III. Sc. i. 



Will you take eggs for money ? 

The Winter's Tale. Act I. Sc. 2. 



Unless experience be a jewel. 
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act II. Sc. 2. 

I have gained my experience. 

As You Like It. Act IV. Sc. I. 

The eagle suffers little birds to sing. 

Titus Andronicus. Act IV. Sc. 4. 



SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 1 27 

Enough, with over-measure. 

Coriolanus. Act III. Sc. i. 

Stabbed with a white wench's black eye. 

Romeo and Juliet. Act II. Sc. 4. 

The expedlancy and rose of the fair state, 

The glass of fashion and the mould of form. 

Hamlet. Act III. Sc. i. 

I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness. 

King Lear. Act III. Sc. 2. 

I am dying, Egypt, dying. 

Antony and Cleopatra. Act IV. Sc. 15. 

Still constant is a wondrous excellence. 

Sonnet CV. 

Now expedlation, tickling skittish spirits. 

On one and other side. 

Troilus and Cressida. Prologue. 



The ripest fruit first falls. 

King Richard II. Act II. Sc. i. 

Violent fires soon burn out themselves. 

Ibid. 

To the latter end of a fray and the beginning of 
a feast 



I 



Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest. 

King Henry IV. Part I. Act IV. Sc. 2. 



128 SHAKKSPKARHAN QUOTATIONS 

Food for powder, food for powder; they '11 fill a 

pit as well as better. 

Act IV. Sc. 2. 

Most forcible Feeble. 

Part II. Act III. Sc. 2. 

A little fire is quickly trodden out, 

Which, being suffer' d, rivers cannot quench. 

King Henry VI. Part III. Act IV. Sc. 8. 

Sweet flowers are slow and weeds make haste. 

King Richard III. Act II. Sc. 4, 

Foundations fly the wretched. 

Cymbeline. Act III. Sc. 6. 

Some falls are means the happier to arise. 

Cymbeline. Act IV. Sc. 2. 

Hang there Uke finiit, my soul, 

Till the tree die! 

Act V. So. 5 

Fears make devils of cherubins, they never see 
truly. 

Troilus and Cressida. Act III. Sc. 2. 

Fair is foul, and foul is fair. 

Macbeth. Act I. Sc. i. 



To feed were best at home; 

From thence the sauce to meat is ceremony. 

Act III. Sc. 4. 



41 



SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 1 29 

Absent thee from felicity awhile. 

Hamlet. Act V. Sc. 2. 



Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry 

feast 

The Comedy of Errors. Act III. Sc. i. 



When fowls have no feathers and fish have no fin. 

Ibid. 



Friendship 's full of dregs. 

Timon of Athens. Act I. Sc. 2. 



Has friendship such a faint and milky heart, 

It turns in less than two nights ? 

Act III. Sc. I. 



He lives in fame that died in virtue's cause. 

Titus Andronicus. Act I. Sc. i. 



At my fingers' ends. 

Twelfth Night. Act I. Sc. 3. 



All the learned and authentic fellows. 

All's Well That Ends Well. Act II. Sc. 3. 



O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath ! 

The Merchant of Venice. Act I. Sc. 3. 



130 SHAKKSPKAREAN QUOTATIONS 

G 

Some are born great, some achieve greatness 

and some have greatness thrust upon them. 

Twelfth Night. Act II. Sc. 5. 

'Tis not for gravity to play at cherry-pit with 

Satan. 

Act III. Sc. 4. 

Hark, the game is roused! 

Cymbeline. Act III. Sc. 3. 

Grace me no grace, and uncle me no uncle. 

Ring Richard II. Act II. Sc. 3. 



H 

I have sounded the very base-string of humility. 
King Henry IV. Part I. Act 11. Sc. 4, 

There is a history in all men's lives, 

Figuring the nature of the times deceased. 

King Henry IV. Part II. Act III. Sc. i. 

All hell shall stir for this. 

King Henry V. Act V. Sc. i 

But Hercules himself must yield to odds. 

King Henry VI. Part III. Act II. Sc. i. 

True hope is swift and flies with swallows' wings; 

Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings. 
King Richard III. Act V. Sc. 2. 



SHAKKSPE^ARBAN QUOTATIONS I3I 

To climb steep hills 

Requires slow pace at first. 

King Henry VIII. Act I. Sc. i. 

Just as high as my heart. 

As You Like It. Act III. Sc. 2. 

His very hair is of the dissembling color. 

As You Like It. Act III. Sc. 4. 

But, O, how bitter a thing it is to look into 

happiness through another man's eyes ! 

Act V. Sc. 2. 

Rich honesty dwells like a miser, . in a poor 

house. 

Sc. 4. 

He is now as valiant as 

Hercules that only tells a lie and swears it. 

Much Ado About Nothing. Act IV. Sc. i. 

He that of greatest works is finisher 

Oft does them by the weakest minister. 

All's Well That Ends Well. Act II. Sc. I. 



Hanging and wiving goes by destiny. 

The Merchant of Venice. Act II. Sc. 9. 



He is well paid that is well satisfied. 

Act IV. Sc. I. 



Mine host of the Garter! 

Merry Wives of Windsor. Act I. Sc, 3. 



132 SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 

A high hope for a low heaven. 

Love's Labour's Lost. Act I. Sc. I. 



A horse to be ambassador for an ass. 

Act in. Sc. I. 



He that is giddy thinks the world turns round. 
Taming of the Shrew. Act V. Sc. 2. 



Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure. 

Measure for Measure. Act V. Sc. i. 



Hyperion to a satyr. 

Hamlet. Act L Sc. 2. 



Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, 

But not expressed in fancy, rich, not gaudy. 

Sc. 3. 

What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, 

That he should weep for her ? 

Act IL Sc. 2. 

To be honest as this world goes, is to be a man 

picked out of ten thousand. 

Act n. Sc. 2 

A hit, a very palpable hit. 

Act V. Sc. 2. 

Our new heraldry is hands, not hearts. 

OtheUo. Act in. Sc. 4. 



SHAKKSPBARKAN QUOI'ATlONS 1 33 

And now let's go hand in hand, not one before 
another. 

The Comedy of Errors. Act V. Sc. i. 



He sits 'mongst men like a descended god. 

Cymbeline. Act i. Sc. 6. 



A horse ! a horse ! my kingdom for a horse ! 
King Richard III. Act V. Sc. 4. 



Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for 
an acre of barren ground. 

The Tempest. Act. I. Sc. i 

I thus negledting worldly ends, all dedicated 

To closeness and the bettering of my mind. 

Sc. 2. 

I have that within which passeth show; 

These but the trappings and the suits of woe. 

Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 2. 

I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count my- 
self a king of infinite space, were it not that I 

have bad dreams. 

Act II. Sc. 2. 



134 SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 

''I am Sir Oracle, 

And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark ! ' ' 

The Merchant of Venice. Act I. Sc. i. 



I can easier teach twenty what were good to be 
done than be one of the twenty to follow mine 
own teaching. 

So. 2. 

Come, I will fasten on this sleeve of thine; 

Thou art an elm ... I a vine. 

The Comedy of Errors. Act 11. Sc. 2. 

It was Greek to me. 

Julius Caesar. Act I. Sc. 2. 

Your If is the only peacemaker ; 

Much \4rtue in If. 

As You Like It. Act V. Sc. 4, 

Beware the Ides of March. 

Julius Caesar. Act III. Sc. I« 



I must hear from thee ever\^ day in the hour. 
Romeo and Juliet. Act III. Sc 5, 



I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream. 

King Henry IV. Act IV. Sc. 2 

Ignorance is the curse of God. 

King Henry VI. Part II. Act IV. Sc. 7, 



SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 1 35 

I have an exposition of sleep come upon me. 

Midsummer Night's Dream. Act IV. Sc. i. 



I'll not budge an inch. 
The Taming of the Shrew. Induction. Sc. i. 



As poor as Job ? 

The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act V. Sc. 5. 



If he be sick with joy, he'll recover without 

physic. 

King Henry IV. Part II. Act IV. Sc. 5. 

Now, by two-headed Janus, 

Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time. 
The Merchant of Venice. Act I. Sc. i. 



I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not 
a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affec- 
tions, passions? 

Act III. Sc. I. 



I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word. 

Act IV. Sc. I. 



I am a Jew else, an Ebrew Jew. 

King Henry IV. Part I. Act II. Sc. 4 



136 SHAKKSPKAREAN QUOTATIONS 

K 

What surety of the world, what hope, what stay, 
When this was now a king, and now is clay ? 

King John. Act V. Sc. 7. 

A rascally yea-for-sooth knave. 

King Henry IV. Part II. Act I. Sc. 2. 

Three misbegotten knaves in kendal green. 

King Henry IV. Part I. Act II. Sc. 4. 

The knave is my honest friend, sir, therefore, 
I beseech your worship, let him be countenanced. 

Part II. Act V. Sc. i. 

** A crafty knave does need no broker.'' 

King Henry VI. Part II. Act I. Sc. 2. 

More knave than fool. 

King Lear. Act I. Sc. 4. 



Whip me such honest knaves. 

OtheUo. Act I. Sc. i. 



His kissing is as full of sandlity as the touch 
of holy bread. 

As You Like It. Act III. Sc. 4. 

A little more than kin and less than kind. 

Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 2. 

I must be cruel, only to be kind. 

Act III. Sc. 4. 



i 






SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 1 37 

' Now the king drinks to Hamlet." 

Act V. Sc. 2c 



Yet do I fear thy nature ; 
It is too full o' the milk of human kindness. 

Macbeth. Act I. Sc. 5. 



Old father antic the law. 

King Henry IV. Part I. Act I. Sc. 2. 

More than a little is by much too much. 

Act III. Sc. 2. 

Lord, Lord, how subjedl we old men are to this 
vice of lying ! 

Part II. Act III. Sc. 2. 

But in these nice sharp quillets of the law, 

Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw. 

King Henry VI. Part I. Act II. Sc. 4. 



Woe to that land that 's governed by a child ! 
King Richard III. Act II. Sc. 3. 



A load would sink a navy. 

King Henry VIII. Act III. Sc. 2. 

A most unspotted lily shall she pass 

To the ground, and all the world shall mourn her. 

Act V. So. 5. 



138 SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 

Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's gate smgs. 

Cymbeline. Act II. Sc. 2. 

The lamb entreats the butcher. 

Act III. Sc. 4. 

Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead, 

extravagant grief the enemy to the living. 

All's Well That Ends Well. Act I. Sc. i. 



No legacy is so rich as honesty. 

Act III. Sc. 5. 



Still you keep o* the windy side of the law. 

Twelfth Night. Act III. Sc. 4. 

As good luck would have it. 
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act III. Sc. 5. 

In law what plea so tainted and corrupt 

But, being seasoned with a gracious voice, 

Obscures the show of evil ? 

The Merchant of Venice. Act III. Sc. 2. 



Why, headstrong liberty is lashM with woe. 

The Comedy of Errors. Act II. Sc. i. 

I have had my labour for my travail. 

Troilus and Cressida. Act I. Sc. i. 

The labour we delight in physics pain. 

Macbeth. Act II. Sc. 3. 



shake:sp:^arkan quotations 139 

M 

The memory be green. 

Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 2. 

While memory holds a seat 

In this distra(5led globe. 

Act I. Sc. 5. 

Yea, from the table of my memory 

I '11 wipe away all trivial fond records. 

Ibid. 

Here 's metal more attradlive. 

Act III. Sc. 2. 

To hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature. 

Ibid. 

There 's no art 

To find the mind's construdlion in the face. 

Macbeth. Act I. Sc. 4. 

Memory, the warder of the brain. 

Sc. 7. 

Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell. 

Act IV. Sc. 3. 

I^ayon, Macduff, 
And damn'd be him that first cries, '' Hold, 
enough!'* 

Macbeth. Act V. Sc. 8. 



Nothing comes amiss, so money comes withal. 
The Taming of the Shrew. Act 1. Sc. 2. 



140 SHAKESPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 

'Tis the mind that makes the body rich. 

Act IV. Sc. 3. 



When maidens sue, 
Men give like gods. 

Measure for Measure. Act I. Sc. 4. 

The miserable have no other medicine but only- 
hope. 

Act III. Sc. I. 

Your marriage comes by destiny. 

All's Well That Ends Well. Act I. Sc. 3. 

Now I see 

The mystery of your loneliness, and find your 

salt tears' head. 

Ibid. 

A young man married is a man that 's marr'd. 

Act II. Sc. 3. 

You are thought here to be the most senseless and 
fit man for the constable of the watch. 

Much Ado About Nothing. Act III. Sc. 3. 



I have no moral meaning; 

I meant, plain holy-thistle. 

Sc. 4. , 

Thou flatter' st misery. 

Timon of Athens. Act IV. Sc. 3. 



SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS I41 

Willing misery 

Outlives incertain pomp. 

Ibid. 

Put money in thy purse. 

Othello. Act. I. Sc. 3. 

A golden mind stoops not to shows of dross. 

Merchant of Venice. Act II. Sc. 7. 

And sleep in dull cold marble. 

King Henry VIII. Act III. Sc. 2. 

Henceforth my wooing mind shall be expressed 

In russet yeas and honest kersey noes. 

Love's Labour's Lost. Act. V. Sc. 2. 

Misery acquaints a man with strange bed- fellows. 

The Tempest. Act II. Sc. 2. 

Unquiet meals make ill digestions. 

The Comedy of Errors. Act V. Sc. i 

In a minute there are many days. 

Romeo and Juliet. Act III. Sc. 5. 

They say if money go before, 
All ways do lie open. 

Merry Wives of Windsor. Act II. Sc. 2. 

Here^s a million of manners. 

Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act II. Sc. i. 

Yea, my memory is tired. 

Coriolanus. Act L Sc. 9. 



142 SHAKKSPEAI^EAN QUOTATIONS 

N 
True nobility is exempt from fear. 

King Henry VI. Part II. Act IV. Sc. i. 

I am sworn brother . . 

To grim necessity^ and he and I 

Will keep a league till death. 

King Richard II. Act III. Sc. i. 



They'll not show their teeth in way of smile 

Though Xestor swear the jest be laughable. 

The Merchant of Venice. Act I. Sc. i. 



This night methinks is but the daylight sick. 

Act V. Sc. I. 



Nature teaches beasts to know their friends. 

Coriolanus. Act II. Sc. i. 



The deep of night is crept upon our talk, 

And nature must obey necessity-. 

Julius Caesar. Act IV. Sc. 3. 

Nothing is 

But what is not. 

Macbeth. Act I. Sc. 3. 

In them nature's copy 's not eteme. 

Act III. Sc. 2. 



The night is long that never finds the day. 

Act V. Sc. I. 



i 



SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS I43 



A good mouth-filling oath. 
King Henry IV. Part I. Act III. Sc. 1. 

Order gave each thing view. 

King Henry VIII. Act I. Sc. i. 

I have bought 
Golden opinions from all sorts of people. 

Macbeth Act I. Sc. 2. 

Thus ornament is but the guiled shore 

To a most dangerous sea. 

The Merchant of Venice. Act III. Sc. 2. 

One out of suits with fortune. 

As You Like It. Act I. Sc. 8. 



And therefore welcome the sour cup of pros- 
perity! 

Love's Labour's Lost. Act i. Sc. i. 

O me, with what strict patience have I sat, 

To see a king transformed to a gnat ! 

Act IV. Sc. 3. 

But most it is presumption in us when 

The help of heaven we count the adl of men. 

All's Well That Ends Well. Act IL Sc. i. 



144 SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 

From lowest place when virtuous things proceed, 

The place is dignified by the doer's deed. 

Sc. 3. 

Prosperity 's the very bond of love. 

The Winter's Tale. Act IV. Sc. 4. 



Much is the force of heaven-bred poesy. 

Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act III. Sc. 2. 

How high a pitch his resolution soars ! 

King Richard II. Act I. Sc. i. 

Pride must have a fall. 

Act V. Sc. 5. 



Hide not thy poison with such sugar' d words. 

King Henry VI. Part II. Act III. Sc. 2 



d 



No man's pie is freed 

From his ambitious finger. 

King Henry VIII. Act I. Sc. i. 

He brings his physic 
After his patient's death. 

Act III. Sc. 2. 

Kill thy physician, and the fee bestow 

Upon thy foul disease. 

King Lear. Act I. Sc. i. 

Pitchers have ears. 

Taming of the Shrew. Act. IV. Sc. 4. 

My purpose is, indeed, a horse of that colour. 
Twelfth Night. Act II. Sc. 3. 



1 



SHAK]0;SPKARKAN QUOTATIONS I45 

The learned pate 
Ducks to the golden fool. 

Timon of Athens. Act IV. Sc. 3. 

At lovers' perjuries, 
They say, Jove laughs. 

Romeo and Juliet. Act II. Sc. 2. 

The flighty purpose never is o'ertook 

Unless the deed go with it. 

Macbeth. Act IV. Sc. i. 

Throw physic to the dogs; I'll none of it. 

Act V. Sc. 3. 



R 

No reckoning made, but, sent to my account 

With all my imperfedlions on my head. 

Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 5. 

Why, right; you are i' the right. 

Ibid. 

A very riband in the cap of youth. 

Act IV. Sc. 7. 



I am more an antique Roman than a Dane. 

Act V. Sc. 2. 



Romans, countrymen, and lovers! hear me for 

^ my cause, and be silent, that you may hear. 
p Julius Caesar. Act III. Sc. 2. 



146 SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 

Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved^ 

Rome more. 

Ibid 






Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your 



ears; 



I come to bury Cassar, not to praise him. 

Julius Caesar. Act III. Sc. 2. 



This was the noblest Roman of them all 

Act V. So. 5, 



On the sudden 
A Roman thought had struck him. 



i 



Antony and Cleopetra. Act I. Sc. 2. 

The purest treasure mortal times afford 

Is spotless reputation. 

King Richard II. Act I. Sc. i. 

In rage deaf as the sea, hasty as fire. 

King Richard II. Act I. Sc. i. 

Reputation, reputation, reputation ! 
O, I have lost my reputation ! I have lost the 
immortal part of myself. 

Othello. Act II. Sc. 3. 

But earthlier happy is the rose distill' d 

Than that which withering on the virgin thorn 

Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness. 

A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act I. Sc. i. 

To revenge is no valour, but to bear. 

Timon of Athens. Act III. Sc. 5. 



SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 1 47 

O, Romeo, Romeo ! wherefore art thou Romeo? 
Romeo and Juliet. Act II. Sc. 2. 

The insane root 
That takes the reason prisoner. 

Macbeth. Act I. Sc. 3. 



s 

Bootless speed, 

When cowardice pursues and valour flies. 

Midsummer Night's Dream. Act II. Sc. i. 

Out of this silence yet I pick'd a welcome. 

Act V. Sc. I. 

Be check' d for silence, 
But never tax'd for speech. 

AU's WeU That Ends Well. Act I. Sc. i. 

Though our silence be drawn from us with cars, 

yet peace. 

Twelfth Night. Act II. Sc. 5. 

Birm. Things hid and barr'd . . . from com- 
mon sense ? 

King, Ay, that is study's god-like recompense. 
Love's Labour's Lost. Act J. Sc. i. 

Society, saith the text, is the happiness of life. 

Act IV. Sc. 2. 

I do desire we may be better strangers. 

As You Like It. Act III. Sc. 2. 



148 SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 

For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe. 

Merchant of Venice. Act I. Sc. 3. 

How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds 
Make deeds ill done ! 

King John. Act IV. Sc. 2. 

The setting sun, and music at the close, 

As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last. 

King Richard II. Act II. Sc. i. 

If all the year were playing holidays, 

To sport would be tedious as to work. 

King Henry IV. Part I. Act I. Sc. 2. 

Sink or swim. 

Sc. 3 

A deal of skimble-skamble stuff. 

Act III. Sc. I. 

Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere 

Act V. Sc. 4, 

Base is the slave that pays. 

King Henry V. Act II. Sc. i 

You rub the sore, 
When you should bring the plaster. 

The Tempest. Act II. Sc. i 

Yet, spaniel-like, the more she spurns my love, 
The more it grows and fawneth on her still. 

The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act IV. Sc. 2. 



i 



SHAKKSPKAREAN QUOTATIONS 1 49 

Society is no comfort 
To one not sociable. 

Cymbeline, Act IV. Sc. 2. 

The self -same sun that shines upon his court 

Hides not his visage from our cottage. 

The Winter's Tale. Act IV. Sc. 4. 

I have not kept my square ; but that to come 

Shall all be done by the rule. 

Antony and Cleopatra. Act II. Sc. 3. 

** Where's my serpent of old Nile ? '' 

Antony and Cleopatra. Act I. Sc. 5. 

For greatest scandal waits on greatest state. 

Lucrece. Line 1006. 

Mend your speech a little, 

I/CSt it may mar your fortunes. 

King Lear. Act I. Sc. i. 

Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty. 

Twelfth Night. Act II. Sc. 3. 

I once did hold it, as our statists do, 
A baseness to write fair. 

Hamlet. Act V. Sc. 2. 

Suspicion all our lives shall be stuck full of eyes. 

King Henry IV. Part I. Act V. Sc. 2 

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind. 

King Henry VI. Part III. Act V. Sc. 6. 



I50 SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 

T 

Truth hath a quiet breast. 

King Richard II. Act I. Sc. 3. 

I know a trick worth. two of that. 

King Henry IV. Part I. Act II. Sc. i. 

Mark now, how a pla;n t^le shall put you down. 

Sc. 4. 

Talkers are no good doers. 

King Richard III. Act I. Sc. 3. 

An honest tale speeds best being plainly told. 

Act IV. Sc. 4. 

Truth loves open dealing. 

King Henry VIII. Act III. Sc. i. 

For aught I see, they are as sick that surfeit 

with too much as they that starve with nothing. 
The Merchant of Venice. Act I. Sc. 2. 

Truth will come to light; murder can not be hid 

long. 

Act II. Sc. 2. 

The seeming truth which cunning times put on 

To entrap the wisest. 

The Merchant of Venice. Act III. Sc. 2. 

Hear you this Triton of the minnows ? Mark you 

His absolute ^^ shall. '^ 

Coriolanus. Act III. Sc. i. 



SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 15I 

Truth 's a dog must to kennel. 

King Lear. Act I. Sc. 4. 



For truth is truth 
To the end of reckoning. 

Measure for Measure. Act V. Sc. i. 



He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer 

than the staple of his argument. 

Love's Labour's Lost. Act V. Sc. i. 



Truth hath better deeds than words to grace it. 
The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act IL Sc. 2. 



If you have tears prepare to shed them now. 

Julius Caesar. Act IIL Sc. 2. 



If after every tempest come such calms, 

May the winds blow till they have wakened death! 

Othello. Act IL Sc. i. 



They laugh that win. 

Act IV. Sc. I. 



O, teach me how I should forget to think. 

Romeo and Juliet. Act I. Sc. i. 



Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast. 

Act IL Sc. 3. 



Thank me no thanking, nor proud me no prouds. 

Act III. Sc. 5. 



152 SHAKBSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 

Like one 

Who having into truth, by telling of it, 

Made such a sinner of his memory, 

To credit his own lie. 

The Tempest. Act I. Sc. 2. 

And thereby hangs a tale. 

As You Like It. Act II. Sc. 7. 



The better part of valour is discretion. 

King Henry IV. Part I. Act V. Sc. 4. 



What valour were it, when a cur doth grin, 

For one to thrust his hand between his teeth ? 
King Henry VI. Part III. Act I. Sc. 4. 

Her voice was ever soft, 
Gentle, and low, an excellent thing in woman. 

King Lear. Act V. Sc. 3. 



He's truly valiant that can wisely suffer. 

Timon of Athens. Act III. Sc. 5. 



A violet in the youth of primy nature, 

Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting. 

Hamlet. Act L Sc. 3. 



My ventures are not in one bottom trusted, 

Nor to one place. 

The Merchant of Venice. Act I. Sc. ic 



SHAK]^SPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 1 53 

W 

The wise deserves a welcome. 

Measure for Measure. Act III. Sc. I, 



What's mine is yours and what is yours is mine. 

Act V. Sc. I. 



Blow, blow, thou winter wind, 

Thou art not so unkind 

As man's ingratitude. 

As You Like It. Act II. Sc. 7. 



Answer me in one word. 

Act III. Sc. 2. 



It is the witness still of excellency 

To put a strange face on his own perfection . 

Much Ado About Nothing. Act II. Sc. 3. 



Sits the wind in that corner? 

Ibid. 



This fellow pecks up wit as pigeons pease. 

Love's Labour's Lost. Act V. Sc. 2. 



Behold the window of my heart, mine eye. 

Ibid. 



Wherefore are these things hid ? 

Twelfth Night. Act I. Sc. 3. 



154 SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 

O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no 

name to be known by, let us call thee devil ! 

Othello. Act III. Sc. 3. 



Every puny whipster. 

Act V. Sc. 2. 



Wishers were ever fools. 

Antony and Cleopatra. Act IV. Sc. 13. 



One that loves a cup of hot wine with not a drop 

of alla34ng Tiber in 't. 

Coriolanus. Act II. Sc. i. 



Come not within the measure of my wrath. 

The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act V. Sc. 4- 



Full oft we see 

Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly. 

All's Well That Ends Well. Act I. Sc. I. 



Wealth is burden of my wooing dance. 

Taming of the Shrew. Act I. Sc. 2. 



Well, if my wind were but long enough to say 

my pra3'ers, I would repent. 

The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act IV. Sc. 5. 



The smallest worm will turn being trodden on. 
King Henry VI. Part III. Act II. Sc. 2. 



SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 1 55 

111 blows the wind that profits nobody. 

Sc. 5. 

Welcome ever smiles, 
And farewell goes out sighing. 

Troilus and Cressida. Act III. Sc. 3. 

A word and a blow. 

Romeo and Juliet. Act III. Sc. i. 



'Tis lack of kindly warmth they are not kind. 
Timon of Athens. Act II. Sc. 2. 



** We have seen better days. '* 

Act IV. Sc. 2. 



156 SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 



APPENDIX 

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, 
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and 
Are melted into air, into thin air: 
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, 
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces. 
The solemn temples, the great globe itself, 
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve. 
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, 
lyCave not a rack behind. We are such stuflF 
As dreams are made on; and our little life 
Is rounded with a sleep. 

The Tempestc Act IV. Sc. i7 

She is mine own. 

And I as rich in having such a jewel 

As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl, 

The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold. 
The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act II. Sc. 



He makes sweet music with th' enamelled stones, 

Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge 

He overtake th in his pilgrimage. 

Sc. 7. 



SHAKESPKARE^AN QUOTATIONS 1 57 

Thyself and thy belongings 
Are not thine own so proper as to waste 
Thyself upon thy virtues, they on thee. 
Heaven doth with us, as we with torches do. 
Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues 
Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike 
As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely 

touched 
But to fine issues, nor Nature never lends 
The smallest scruple of her excellence 
But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines 
Herself the glory of a creditor. 

Measure for Measure. Act I. Sc. i. 

No ceremony that to great ones 'longs 

Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword. 

The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe, 

Become them with one-half so good a grace 

As mercy does. 

Act II. Sc. 2. 

Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once; 
And He that might the vantage best have took 
Found out the remedy. How would you be. 
If He, which is the top of judgment, should 
But judge you as you are? 



Ibid. 



But man, proud man, 
Brest in a little brief authority. 
Most ignorant of what he's most assured, 



158 SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 

His glassy essence, like an angry ape, 

Pla3'S such fantastic tricks before high heaven 

As make the angels weep. 

Ibid. 

The rude sea grew civil at her song. 

And certain stars shot madty from their spheres 

To hear the sea-maid's music. 

A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act II. Sc. i. 

And the imperial votaress passed on, 

In maiden meditation, fancy-free. 

Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell; 

It fell upon a little western flower, 

Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound, 

And maidens call it love-in-idleness. 

Ibid. 

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, 

Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows. 

Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, 

With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine. 

Ibid. 

The lover, all as frantic, 
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt: 
The poet's eye in a fine frenz}^ rolling, 
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to 

heaven; 
And as imagination bodies forth 
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 



I 



vSHAKESPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 1 59 

Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing 

A local habitation and a name. 

Such tricks hath strong imagination, 

That if it would but apprehend some joy. 

It comprehends some bringer of that joy; 

Or in the night, imagining some fear. 

How easy is a bush supposed a bear! 

Act V. Sc. I. 

All things that are 

Are with more spirit chased than enjoy' d. 

How like a younker or a prodigal 

The scarfed bark puts from her native bay, 

Hugg'd and embraced by the strumpet wind! 

How like the prodigal doth she return. 

With over- weathered ribs and ragged sails, 

I^an, rent, and beggar' d by the strumpet wind! 
The Merchant of Venice. Act II. Sc. 6. 

I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes ? Hath not 
a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affec- 
tions, passions? 

Act III. Sc. I. 

The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it 

shall go hard, but I will better the instruction. 

Ibid. 

In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt 
But being season 'd with a gracious voice 
Obscures the show of evil ? 

Sc. 2. 



l6o SHAKKSPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 

You call me misbeliever, cutthroat, dog, 
And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine. 

The Merchant of Venice. Act I. Sc 3. 



O father Abram! What these Christians are, 
Whose own hard dealings teaches them suspect 
The thoughts of others! 

Act I. Sc. 3. 



The quality of mercy is not strain' d, 

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven 

Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest: 

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. 

'T is mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes 

The throned monarch better than his crown; 

His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, 

The attribute to awe and majesty, 

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings; 

But mercy is above this sceptred sway. 

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, 

It is an attribute to God himself; 

And earthly power doth then show likest God's 

When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew, 

Though justice be thy plea, consider this. 

That in the course of justice none of us 

Should see salvation; we do pray for mercy; 

And that same prayer doth teach us all to render 

The deeds of mercy. 

Act IV. Sc. I. 



SHAKKSPBARKAN QUOTATIONS l6l 

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! 

Here we will sit and let the sounds of music 

Creep in our ears; soft stilness and the night 

Become the touches of sweet harmony. 

Sit . . . lyook how the floor of heaven 

Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold; 

There's not the smallest orb which thou behold' st 

But in his motion like an angel sings, 

Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins. 

Such harmony is in immortal souls; 

But whilst this muddy vesture of decay 

Doth grossly close it in, we can not hear it. 

Act V. Sc. I. 

Sweet are the uses of adversity, 

Which like the toad, ugly and venomous, 

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head; 

And this our life, exempt from public haunt. 

Finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks, 

Sermons in stones, and good in everything. 

As You Like It. Act II. Sc. I. 

All the world's a stage, 
And all the men and women merely players; 
They have their exits and their entrances; 
And one man in his time plays many parts, 
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant. 
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. 
And then the whining school-boy, with his 
satchel 



l62 SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 

And shining morning face, creeping like snail 
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, 
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad 
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier. 
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard; 
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel. 
Seeking the bubble reputation 
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the 

justice. 
In fair round bell}^ with good capon lined, 
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, 
Full of wise saws and modern instances; 
And so he pia3'S his part. The sixth age shifts 
Into the lean and slipper' d pantaloon. 
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side; 
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide 
For his shrimk shank; and his big manly voice. 
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes 
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all. 
That ends this strange eventful history. 
Is second childishness and mere oblivion 
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. 
As You Like It. Act II. Sc. 7. 



The Retort Courteous; . . . the Quip Modest; . . . 

the Reply Churlish; . . . the Reproof Valient; 

. . . the Counter check Quarrelsome; . . . 

the Lie with Circumstance; . . . the Lie Diredl. 

Act V. Sc. 4. 



SHAKKSPEARKAN QUOTATIONS 1 63 

lyook in the chronicles; we came in with Richard 
Conqueror. 

The Taming of the Shrew. Induction. Sc. i. 

If music be the food of love, play on; 
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting. 
The appetite may sicken, and so die. 
That strain again! it had a dying fall: 
Oh, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound 
That breathes upon a bank of violets, 
Stealing and giving odour. 

Twelfth Night. Act I. Sc. i. 

Duke, And what 's her history ? 

Vio. A blank, my lord. She never told her love, 

But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, 

Feed on her damask cheek; she pined in thought, 

And with a green and yellow melancholy 

She sat like patience on a monument. 

Smiling at grief. 

Act II. Sc. 4. 

What you' do 
Still betters what is done. When you speak 

sweet, 
I 'd have you do it ever; when you sing, 
I 'd have you buy and sell so, so give alms, 
Pray so; and for the ordering your affairs, 
To sing them, too; when you do dance, I wish 

you 



1 64 SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 

A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do 

Nothing but that, move still, still so, 

And own no other func^lion; each your doing, 

So singular in each particular, 

Crowns what you are doing in the present deed. 

That all your adls are queens. 

The Winter's Tale. Act IV. Sc. 4. 

To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, 

To throw a perfume on the violet, 

To smooth the ice, or add another hue 

Unto the rainbow, or with taper light 

To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish. 

Is wasteful and ridiculous excess. 

King John. Act IV. Sc. 2. 

Oh, who can hold a fire in his hand 
By thinking on the frosty Caucasus ? 
Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite 
By bare imagination of a feast ? 
Or wallow naked in December snow 
By thinking on fantastic summer's heat? 
Oh, no! the apprehension of the good 
Gives but the greater feeling to the worse. 

King Richard II. Act I. Sc. 3. 

By heaven, me thinks it were an easy leap 

To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced 

moon. 
Or dive into the bottom of the deep, 



shakkspkar:e;an quotations 165 

Where fathom-line could never touch the ground, 

And pluck up drowned honour by the locks. 

King Henry IV. Part I. Act I. Sc. 3. 

I have peppered two of them, two I am sure I have 
paid, two rogues in buckram suits. I tell thee 
what, Hal, if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face; 
call me horse. Thou knowest my old word: 
here I lay, and thus I bore my point. Four 
rogues in buckram let drive at me. 

Act II. Sc. 4. 

Three misbegotten knaves in Kendal green. 

Ibid. 

Give you a reason on compulsion! if reasons 

were as plentiful as blackberries, I would give 

no man a reason upon compulsion, I. 

King Henry IV. Part I. Act II. Sc. 4. 

A plague of sighing and grief ! It blows a man 

up like a bladder. 

Ibid. 

Farewell! a long farewell, to all my greatness! 
This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth 
The tender leaves of hope; to-morrow blossoms. 
And bears his blushing honours thick upon him; 
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost. 
And when he thinks, good easy man, full surely 
His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root. 
And then he falls, as I do. I have ventured, 



1 66 SHAKESPE^ARKAN QUOTATIONS 



I 



lyike little wanton boys that swim on bladders, 
This many summers in a sea of glory, 
But far beyond my depth : my high-blown pride 
At length broke under me and now has left me, 
Weary and old with service, to the mercy 
Of a rude stream, that must forever hide me. 
Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye: 
I feel my heart new opened. Oh how wretched 
Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favours! 
There is betwixt that smile w^e would aspire to 
That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin. 
More pangs and fears than wars or women have: 
And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, 
Never to hope again. 

King Henry VIII. Act III. Sc. 2. 

lyOve thyself last: cherish those hearts that hate 

thee; 
Corruption wins not more than honesty, 
Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, 
To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear 

not: 

Let all the ends thou aims't at be thy country's, 

Thy God's, and truth's; then if thou fall'st . . . 

Thou fall'st a blessed martyr! 

King Henry VIII. Act III. Sc. 3. 

Immortal gods I crave no pelf; 

I pray for no man but myself; 

Grant I may never prove so fond, 

To trust man on his oath or bond. 

Timon of Athens. Act I. Sc. 2. 



SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 167 

Ye gods, it doth amaze me 
A man of such a feeble temper should 
So get the start of the majestic world 
And bear the palm alone. 

Julius Csesar. Act I. Sc. 2. 

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world 

Like a Colossus, and we petty men 

Walk under his huge legs and peep about 

To find ourselves dishonourable graves. 

Men at some time are masters of their fates; 

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, 

But in oinrselves, that we are underlings. 

Ibid. 



Romans, countrymen, and lovers! hear me for 
my cause, and be silent, that you may hear: 
believe me for mine honour, and have respect 
to mine honour, that you may believe; censure 
me in your wisdom, and awake your senses, 
that you may the better judge. 

Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved 

Rome more. 

Act III. Sc. 2. 

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; 
I come to bury Csesar, not to praise him. 
The evil that men do lives after them; 
The good is oft interred with their bones; 



l68 SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 

So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus 

Hath told you Csesar was ambitious: 

If it were so, it was a grievous fault, 

And grievously hath Csesar answered it. 

Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest — 

For Brutus is an honourable man; 

So are they all, all honourable men — 

Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral. 

He was my friend, faithful and just to me; 

But Brutus says he was ambitious; 

And Brutus is an honourable man. 

He hath brought many captives home to Rome, 

Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill: 

Did this in Csesar seem ambitious ? 

When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept: 

Ambition should be m.ade of sterner stuff: 

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; 

And Brutus is an honourable man. 

You all did see that on the Lupercal 

I thrice presented him a kingly crown 

Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition? 

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; 

And, sure, he is an honourable man. 

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke, 

But here I am to speak what I do know. 

You all did love him once, not without cause: 

What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him ? 

O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts. 

And men have lost their reason. 

Ibid. 



SHAKKSPKAREAN QUOTATIONS 1 69 

Methought I heard a voice cry, ' ' Sleep no more! 
Macbeth doth raurder sleep! " the innocent sleep, 
Sleep that knits up the ravelPd sleave of care. 
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath, 
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course. 
Chief nourisher in life's feast. 

Macbeth. Act II. Sc. 2. 

Thou canst not say I did it; never shake 
Thy gory locks at me. 

Macbeth. Act III. Sc. 4. 



The time has been. 

That when the brains were out the man would 

die, 

And there an end; but now they rise again. 

With twenty mortal murders on their crowns. 

And push us from our stools. 

Ibid. 

My way of life 

Is faU'n into the sere, the yellow leaf; 

And that which should accompany old age. 

As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, 

I must not look to have; but in their stead 

Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath. 

Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare 

not. 

Macbeth. Act V. Sc. 3. 



IJO SHAKESPKAREAN QUOTATIONS 

Cure her of that. 

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd, 

Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, 

Raze out the written troubles of the brain, 

And with some sweet obli\4ous antidote 

Cleanse the stuff' d bosom of that perilous stuff" 

Which weighs upon the heart ? 

Ibid. 

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, 
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day 
To the last syllable of recorded time, 
And all our 3'esterda3^s have lighted fools 
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! 
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player 
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage 
And then is heard no more: it is a tale 
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, 
Signif>dng nothing. 

Macbeth. Act V. Sc, 5. 

In the most high and palmy state of Rome, 
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell. 
The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead 
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets. 

Hamlet. Act I. Sc. I. 

Seems, Madam! nay, it is; I know not ''seems.*' 
'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, 
Nor customary suits of solemn black. 

Sc. 2t 



SHAKKSPKARBAN QUOTATIONS I71 

But I have that within which passeth show; 
These but the trappings and the suits of woe. 

Ibid. 



Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother, 
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven 
Visit her face too roughly. 

Ibid. 

Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, 
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven; 
Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine. 
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, 
And recks not his own rede. 

Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 3. 

Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. 
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, 
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel. 

Ibid. 

Beware 
Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in. 
Bear 't that the opposed may beware of thee. 
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice; 
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judg- 
ment. 
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, 
But not expressed in fancy, rich, not gaudy. 

For the apparal oft proclaims the man. 

Ibid. 



172 SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 

Neither a borrower nor a lender be; 
For loan oft loses both itself and friend, 
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. 
This above all: to thine own self be true, 
And it must follow, as the night the day, 
Thou canst not then be false to any man. 



Ibid. 



This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a 
sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, 
the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firma- 
ment, this majestical roof fretted with golden 
fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than 
a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. 
What a piece of work is a man! how noble in 
reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and 
moving how express and admirable! in acflion 
how like an angel ! in apprehension how like a 
god! 

Act II. Sc. 2. 



To be, or not to be; that is the question: 
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer 
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, 
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles. 
And by opposing end them ? To die: to sleep: 
No more; and by a sleep to say we end 
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks 



SHAKKSPKARKAN QUOTATIONS 1 73 

That flesh is heir to — 'tis a consummation 
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep; 
To sleep; perchance to dream : ay, there's the 

rub: 
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come. 
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, 
Must give us pause: there's the respecft 
That makes calamity of so long life; 
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, 
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's con- 
tumely, 
The pangs of dispised love, the law's delay, 
The insolence of office and the spurns 
That patient merit of the unworthy takes. 
When he himself might his quietus make 
With a bare bodkin ? Who would fardels bear, 
To grunt and sweat under a weary life. 
But that the dread of something after death, 
The undiscovered country from whose bourn 
No traveller returns, puzzles the will 
And makes us rather bear those ills we have 
Than fly to others that we know not of? 
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; 
And thus the native hue of resolution 
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, 
And enterprises of great pith and moment 
With this regard their currents turn awry. 
And lose the name of adlion. 

Act III. Sc. I. 



174 SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATIONS 

There is a special providence in the fall of a 
sparrow. If it be now, 't is not to come ; if it 
be not to come, it will be now ; if it be not 
now, yet it will come : the readiness is all. 
Since no man has aught of what he leaves,* 
what is 't to leave betimes? 

Act V. Sc. 2. 

This is the excellent fopper^^ of the world that, 
when we are sick in fortune, — often the surfeit 
of our own beha\'iour, — we make guilty of our 
disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars; as 
if we were \'illains by necessity; fools by 
heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and 
treachers by spherical predominance: drunk- 
ards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obed- 
ience of planetary influence; and all that we are 
evil in, by a divine thrusting on: ... to lay 

his goatish disposition to the charge of a star J 

King Lear. Act I. Sc. 2. 

Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are, 

That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm. 

How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides, 

Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend 

you 

From seasons such as these ? 

Act III. Sc. 4. 

A man may see how this world goes with no eyes. 
L^ook with thine ears; see how yond justice rails 



SHAKKSPBARKAN QUOTA'TlONS 1 75 

Upon yond simple thief. Hark, in thine ear: 

change places; and, handy-dandy, which is the 

justice, which is the thief? 

Act IV. Sc. 6. 

Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors, 
My very noble and approv'd good masters, 
That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter, 
It is most true: 1 have married her: 
The very head and front of my offending 
Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my 

speech. 
And little bless' d with the soft phrase of peace: 
For since these arms of mine had seven years' 

pith, 
Till now some nine moons wasted, they have 

used 
Their dearest adlion in the tented field. 
And little of this great world can I speak 
More than pertains to feats of broil and battle, 
And therefore little shall I grace my cause 
In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious 

patience, 
I will a round unvarnished tale deliver 
Of my whole course of love. 

Othello. Act I. Sc. 3. 

Her father loved me; oft invited me; 

Still questioned me the story of my life 

From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes, 

That I have passed. 

Ibid. 



Jy77~/ 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 105 328 




